Reading occasionally reveals a pleasing convergence of thought between one writer, separated by centuries and continents, and another. The happy reader is their ambassador and beneficiary. I was again reading Nabokov’s brief, death-haunted novel from 1972, Transparent Things. Its reputation among Nabokov critics seems to be middling at best but I’ve always remained loyal, in part out of nostalgia. I bought and read the novel when it was first published. In the second paragraph Nabokov writes:
“Perhaps if
the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be
discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands
would be balanced by those of the future.”
This confirms
my inability to picture the future, an effort I associate with sitting in front
of a blank movie screen – no image, no sound, no future. Last weekend I was also reading William Hazlitt, a man who was often silly in private life but mastered
an excellent prose style in his essays. This is from “On the Past and Future” (Table-Talk, 1821):
“The objects
that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of
our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. The future is
like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view; the past is
alive and stirring with objects, bright or solemn, and of unfading interest.”
1 comment:
Quite agree with you about Transparent Things – his late masterpiece, I'd say (about Look at the Harlequins, the less said the better). It was first published, improbably enough, in Esquire magazine, where I, equally improbably, first read it.
Post a Comment