Bruce Stone: "...this special "inconclusiveness" of
Nabokov's fiction reminds me of the passage in Invitation to a
Beheading [...] "You cannot see anything. I tried it
too." N's fiction often frustrates the search for a clear, unobstructed
view...in lieu of ontological stabilty. ...Cincinnatus does...catch
glimpses of what's out there--even if these are only "partial conclusions."
[...] "... if we make the effort to track the distortions in the text, to
arrive at something closer to the truth, then the novel has in some sense
visited this problem of perception upon its readers[....]In Lolita, this sharing
in the crisis of perception is especially disconcerting, because in this regard
Humbert's insanity is representative of a larger, perhaps universal dilemma.
...we should note that this existential evasiveness can be pernicious or benign,
depending on the context. In any case, Nabokov's own pronouncements about
reality--for example, that it begins "to rot and stink" unless its surface is
animated by subjective perception--seem to cover both his fictional and our
"real" worlds."
JM: Anamorphic converging mirrors
for outspreading evils don't always exist, even
in novels whose structure establishes definite beginnings
and definite ends. Perhaps an 'unobstructed view' and 'ontological
stability' (isn't this search related to the Aristotelic definition
"Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei"? ) are seldom attainable.
Existential evasiveness, as you said, can be pernicious or benign.
But when is the time ripe to take an attitude and interfere? In
B.S. Nabokov intervened to save Krug by visiting madness upon
him, and granting him a glimpse into his creator's
"paradise."
Trying to get a digital short-cut to your N-quote, I reached a possible
"VN-sighting".
I found the quote: "
Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of
individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived
texture." (Vladimir Nabokov, from an interview)" in an article
by Joyce Carol Oates in ".The Death Throes
of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath" THE DEATH THROES OF ROMANTICISM: The Poetry of
Sylvia ... work.restory.net/.../Oates%20- ...
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* - There is a sense, in all your fiction, of
the imagined being so much truer than boring old
reality. Do you see the categories of imagination, dream, and reality as
distinct and, if so, in what way? Your use of the word "reality" perplexes me. To be
sure, there is an average reality, perceived by all of us, but that
is not true reality: it is only the reality of general ideas,
conventional forms of humdrummery, current editorials. Now if
you mean by "old reality" the
so-called "realism" of old novels, the easy platitudes of Balzac or
Somerset Maugham or D. H. Lawrence-- to take some especially
depressing examples-- then you are right in suggesting
that the reality faked by a
mediocre performer is boring, and that imaginary
worlds acquire by contrast a dreamy and unreal aspect. Paradoxically, the only
real, authentic worlds are, of course, those that seem unusual. When my fancies
will have been sufficiently imitated, they, too,
will enter the common domain of average reality, which will be
false, too, but within a new context which we cannot yet
guess. Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of
individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived
texture.
Would it be fair to say
that you see life as a very funny but cruel
joke? Your term "life" is
used in a sense which I cannot apply to a manifold shimmer. Whose life?
What life? Life does not exist without a
possessive epithet...My own life has been incomparably happier and
healthier than that of Genghis Khan...As to the
lives of my characters, not all are grotesque and not all are
tragic: Fyodor in The Gift is
blessed with a faithful love and an
early recognition of his genius; John Shade in Pale Fire leads an intense
inner existence, far removed from what you call a joke. You must be
confusing me with
Dostoevski.