The author Vladimir Nabokov once said (and I paraphrase) that novels
shouldn’t merely be read, but rather, reread multiple times so that
once can hold the novel in his mind, in its entirety, like a painting.
I’ve
read one novel four times: Lolita (which is ironic considering that
Nabokov is the author of that book, and the man whose quote is the
topic of this post), and I must agree that I do hold it in my mind in a
starkly different manner than I hold other novels.
The other
night, though, I was listening to an old song on the radio, and, noting
the way that I was holding the song in my mind, I got to thinking about
the possibility of Nabokov’s rereading reasoning applying to other
forms of art.
[. . .click above to read on]