Vladimir Nabokov, Butterfly Hunter. (Ithica, NY, 1958; photograph by Carl Mydans)
“Dostoevski’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity- all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of “sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author Ivan Bunin put it more bluntly, “spilling Jesus all over the place.”
- Nabokov lecture on Dostoevsky and discussion of sentimentalism.
I love to read Dostoevsky and don’t agree with Nabokov, but I also love reading great author’s diss on other established, great authors.
A side note: I’m sorry for the lack of posts on my Tumblr over the past couple of weeks. The semester is ending, I have a couple of research papers I’m working on, and a bunch of fantastic personal problems I won’t be sharing here. Wait and I will post more…
The man in action again: ”Author Vladimir Nabokov chasing butterflies; Ithaca, NY; September 1958; photographed by Carl Mydans.”
” ‘Lermontov, said Pnin, lifting two fingers, ‘has expressed everything about mermaids in only two poems. I cannot understand American humor even when I am happy, and I must say - ’ He removed his glasses with trembling hands, elbowed the magazine aside, and, resting his head on his arm, broke into muffled sobs.”
- Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin
“Author Vladimir Nabokov playing chess with his wife.; Location:Ithaca, NY; Date taken:September 1958; Photographer: Carl Mydans.”
” ‘Too many people,’ said Pnin. ’Inquisitive people. Whereas special privacy is now to me absolutely necessary.’ He coughed into his fist with an unexpected cavernous sound (which somehow reminded Joan of a professional Don Cossack she had once met) and then took the plunge: ’I must warn: will have all my teeth pulled out. It is a repulsive operation.’ “
- Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin
“Author Vladimir Nabokov catching a butterfly; Ithaca, NY, September 1958; photographed by Carl Mydans”
“Theoretically there is no absolute proof that one’s awakening in the morning (the finding oneself again in the saddle of one’s personality) is not really a quite unprecedented event, a perfectly original birth. One day Ember and he had happened to discuss the possibility of their having invented in toto the works of William Shakespeare, spending millions and millions on the hoax, smothering with hush money countless publishers, librarians, the Stratford-on-Avon people, since in order to be responsible for all references to the poet during three centuries of civilization, these references had to be assumed to be spurious interpolations injected by the inventors into actual works which they had re-edited; there still was a snag here, a bothersome flaw, but perhaps it might be eliminated, too, just as a cooked chess problem can be cured by the addition of a passive pawn… “
- Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister
Fyodor Tyutchev’s poem, “Silentium!” (via http://www.bigbridge.org/issue7/poetbiminor.htm )
“SILENTIUM!
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
The way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard …
take in their song and speak no word.”
- translated by Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve posted this before, but I don’t think anyone saw it. I like Tyutchev’s Romantic style. Tyutchev and Nabokov are two more reasons why I want to read Russian.
But the books you like must also be read with shudders and gasps… Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain -the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed -then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you will have contributed something of your own blood.
“
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Vladimir Nabokov, in his rather critical lecture on Dostoevksy, arguing that while there is pleasure to be taken in dismantling mediocre literature it is just as necessary to interrogate and re-imagine one’s favorite works. (via mills) (via unburyingthelead)
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And then, thought Krug, on top of everything, I am a slave of images. We speak of one thing being like some other thing when what we are really craving to do is to describe something that is like nothing on earth. Certain mind pictures have become so adulterated by the concept of ‘time’ that we have come to believe in the actual existence of a permanently moving bright fissure (the point of perception) between our retrospective eternity which we cannot recall and the prospective one which we cannot know.
“
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Krug in Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
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