Matthew Roth: "Way back in
1997, our list founder asked whether or not the poem ascribed to FWH Myers in
“The Vane Sisters” was genuine or a Nabokovian invention [ ]The answer is
a little of both [ ]. “What is this power,” he will say, “from which no
organ and no thought is exempt or free?[ ] which can check the
perilous habit and dispel the dolorous dream? which can turn loathing and
abhorrence into desire, and sway with an impalpable dominance the very tides of
the human heart?” (Proc. SPR, V. 7, p. 348) And here is the poem in “The Vane
Sisters”: What is this—a conjuror’s rabbit,/ Or a flawy but genuine gleam—/
Which can check the perilous habit/And dispel the dolorous
dream?
The particular subject of the Myers quotation is
that of hypnosis. I wonder if that last sentence doesn’t have some relationship
to the narrator’s situation. His descriptions of both Sybil and Cynthia display
abhorrence, yet some desire for them compels
him..."
[ ] While truffling for trifles in “The Vane
Sisters” I set off on a quest to locate “John Moore, and his brother Bill [who]
had been coal miners in Colorado and had perished in an avalanche at ‘Crested
Beauty’ in January 1883.” [ I ] eventually happened upon a copy
of The Annual Statistician and Economist...including, on Jan 30, 1883 the
following: “Snow slide 3 miles from Crested Butte, Col., 5 killed, 25
injured.” ...That in turn led to a Dept of Agriculture document...it gives
a brief account of the avalanche striking a coal camp and lists, among the dead,
a William Moore. I presume this is the Bill Moore VN placed in “The Vane
Sisters.”
Jansy Mello:
Congratulations, again! The results may also serve to shed light on some of
V.Nabokov's methods of composition by inserting factual items that are
often unrelated to the gist of the plot but eerily suggest some sort of
metaphysical intent or a web of coincidences.
His admirer, W.G.Sebald, explored this resource
even more fully ((I just watched the DVD "Patience - After Sebald"- focusing
on "The Rings of Saturn," with its melange of ancient and new information
strangely interwoven in the story), when he brings to life forgotten little
citizens, submerged towns, trivial objects. Julian Connolly's apt
quote from "The Fight" illustrates this point:"Or perhaps
what matters is not the human pain or joy at all but, rather [ ]the
harmony of trifles assembled on this particular day, this particular moment, in
a unique and inimitable way." (I cannot see why, for J.C "The major English novels would seem to refute that
proposition.")
The relation you established between the poem in
"The Vane Sisters" and the exact lines in FWH Myers's article by mentioning the
underlying theme of hypnosis is very important considering the
narrator's "abhorrence" associated to his unexplainable "desire"
impelling him on a dreamily devious path filled with trivia.