More specifically concerning: nabokov
8.12.01 – Saturday
8 December 2001, around 14.04.
Reading Invitation to a Beheading: In the evenings he would feast on ancient books in the lazy enchanting lap of wavelets in the Floating Library, in memoriam of Dr. Sineokov, who had drowned in just that spot on the city river (27). Motivation, of course, something to do with latent shame, as usually I’m the […]
Pnin
13 May 2004, around 18.58.
ars academica
Snow
15 May 2004, around 18.56.
a Turkish winter
lines written in Oregon
14 April 2006, around 10.54.
by Nabokov
dialogue in solitude
16 December 2007, around 20.47.
Once again, why Spinoza? When I was talking to Dime T. from Ohrid, Macedonia, one afternoon about parapsychology, he asked me: ‘Why do you think you are writing about Spinoza?’ Had it been a conversation with a philosopher, I would have said something like: ‘Because of his unique philosophy, because of his divergence from Descartes’ […]
testimonia
8 December 2019, around 16.05.
Vladislav Khodasevich and Nina Berberova, Sorrento, 1925. We perceived everything that happened then as an omen. But of what? —Vladislav Khodasevich (‘Muni’ in Necropolis, p. 83) It is difficult to know how to start thinking about Necropolis. Before I finished the book, I was certainly inclined to be dismissive – just so much gossip about […]
de finibus
31 May 2020, around 15.23.
There is the sense that the book has an argument, that it wants some sort of artist’s statement to illumine its depths. I complained of this, and PF observed that experimental authors tend to fall into two camps – the Nabokovian and the Joycean. The Nabokovian camp will tell you in great detail all the […]
so to speak
12 August 2020, around 6.43.
A scene from Rousseau’s Confessions1 We were walking away from the bookstore, where we had just purchased a second copy (with a nicer cover) of Nabokov’s translation of and commentary on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, and to pass the time before dinner we talked about Pushkin’s short stories. PF mentioned that Pushkin was noted for his […]
on being seen
19 November 2020, around 5.31.
Tu n’as rien vu à Hiroshima. Rien. // J’ai tout vu. Tout. Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. —Arthur Conan Doyle (‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, section 1) Had Marguerite Duras […]
the hazy reader
24 February 2024, around 17.35.
These little puzzles which, without exception, have an artistic purpose, should also be fun. The approximate reader, drowsy from the airliner’s unhealthy air and the complimentary drinks he has downed, always has the lamentable option of skipping, as he often did with the best-selling Lolita. —Dmitri Nabokov (‘On a book entitled The Enchanter’)