A former exchange (Sat.29 Jan, 2011) with comments and a belated
"sighting":
Gary Lipon: "I think this ("not the
dream") simply refers to Shade's vision of the fountain, which had just
been discredited by Coates."
JM:
A very sensible observation. Sometimes even Nabokovian words may be simply
simple, such as "dream."
JM: "No dream is ever just a dream" is one of the
closing remarks we find in Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut
(1999), which was based on Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story
(Traumnovelle)*. In his discussion about Kubrick's movies Critic
Randy Rasmussen (Cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Wide_Shut ) interprets Ziegler (a character who
is absent from Schnitzler's novel) as representing "Bill's worst self, much
as in other Kubrick films; the title character in Dr. Strangelove
represents the worst of the American national security establishment, Charles
Grady represents the worst of Jack Torrance in The Shining, and Clare Quilty
represents the worst of Humbert Humbert in Lolita," leaving no doubt
that, in his eyes, Quilty and Humbert are one and the same.
After I happened onto a forum where Kubrick's movie was being discussed, I
selected from it its lines about "a dream." Although I fully agree with Gary
Lipon's observation that Shade's lines refer to his dream
about the reality of a fountain [a shiny eruption
that rises in after-life ( therefore, as a vision which
he'd share with other people who went through a similar experience as his) and
the implicit conclusion that a typographic mix
up (fountain/mountain) may, itself, be significant enough
to reveal the presence of life's hidden patterns],
I think that it's still worthwhile to interpret Shade's lines
by taking into account not only his ideas, but also Nabokov's overall
visions - including his denial of how dreams serve
to reveal a person's (even a character's) inner turmoils. Nabokov's
irony, lurking through Shade's equivocated belief that he'd be alive on the
next day acquires thereby new ambiguity
and depth**.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the
impression that you have learned through intuition - though actually as a result
of sensitive introspection - everything that I have had to unearth by laborious
work on other persons". In Arthur Schnitzler's "Dream Story", as in Stanley
Kubrick & Frederic Raphael's screenplay reality and dream-life
often intertwine. In the movie's last exchanges we find Alice
saying to Bill that they must be "grateful that we've managed to survive
through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream." for she
doubts that "the reality of one night,.let alone that of a whole lifetime,
can ever be the whole truth," while her husband adds: "And no dream is
ever just a dream."
** "I’m reasonably sure that we survive/ And that my
darling somewhere is alive,/ As I am reasonably sure that I/ Shall wake at six tomorrow, on
July/ The
twenty-second, nineteen fifty-nine,/ And that the day
will probably be fine" (he cannot be reasonably sure about the weather,
though...)