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[NABOKOV-L] Spiraling Krug
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In "The Circle" Nabokov details some of his ideas about historical time, memory, repetition - forming a tail which will re-introduce into the mouth of his subsequent novels, and begin another cycle. However, in "Speak,Memory", we learn that, for him, the "spiral is a spiritualized circle."
Certainly, for those who are moving along the spiral's evolutions, there is no point outside them that'll indicate their whereabouts in time and space, but repeated patterns may be discerned*... Nabokov (and Shade, too, in PF), writes in SM about importance he gives to identifying recurring themes and designs when writing an autobiography. Cf Ch.1, pg.27,SM: "I tried to run over the frozen puddles in the grounds of the Hotel Oranien. The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography."
We may imagine, also in S,M (ch.3) part of a pattern, in his recollections of Uncle Ruka:
"In my own case, when I come over Sophie's troubles again ...I not only go through the same agony and delight that my uncle did, but have to cope with an additional burden - the recollection I have of him, reliving his childhood with the help of those very books.I see again my schoolroom in Vyra...Its reflection fills the oval mirror above the leathern couch where my uncle sits, gloating over a tattered book. A sense of security. of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness: a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die." when we compare the iteration of "nothing,"here, and in the closing lines of BS ( where a puddle is a recurring theme and Krug's loving heart), with their metallic twang and "mothing," after "Krug, in a sudden moonburst of madness, understands that ...nothing on earth really matters, there is nothing to fear, and death is but a question of style..."
And, again the contrasting, but equally flashing vision, described in "The Circle": "Suddenly Innokentiy grasped a wonderful fact: nothing is lost, nothing whatever; memory accumulates treasures, stored-up secrets grow in darkness and dust..." **
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* additional related quotes, returning to Nina Kressova's selection from BS, help us to understand, through Nabokov's characters, how "various frames of reference pulsate with FitzGerald contractions...How many of us have begun building anew - or thought they were building anew! Then they surveyed their construction. And lo: Heraclitus the Weeping Willow was shimmering by the door and Parmenides the Smoke was coming out of the chimney and Pythagoras (already inside) was drawing the shadows of the window frames on the bright polished floor..." Everything is perpetual motion? Perpetual stillness? A succession of identifiable patterns?
** - From another perspective, the Historian in BS states: "with so many phenomena of time, recurrent combinations are perceptible as such only when they cannot affect us any more - when they are imprisoned so to speak in the past, which is the past just because it is disinfected. To try to map our tomorrows with the help of data supplied by our yesterdays means ignoring the basic element of the future which is its complete nonexistence. The giddy rush of the present into this vacuum is mistaken by us for a rational movement.' ( 'Pure Krugism')."
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Certainly, for those who are moving along the spiral's evolutions, there is no point outside them that'll indicate their whereabouts in time and space, but repeated patterns may be discerned*... Nabokov (and Shade, too, in PF), writes in SM about importance he gives to identifying recurring themes and designs when writing an autobiography. Cf Ch.1, pg.27,SM: "I tried to run over the frozen puddles in the grounds of the Hotel Oranien. The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography."
We may imagine, also in S,M (ch.3) part of a pattern, in his recollections of Uncle Ruka:
"In my own case, when I come over Sophie's troubles again ...I not only go through the same agony and delight that my uncle did, but have to cope with an additional burden - the recollection I have of him, reliving his childhood with the help of those very books.I see again my schoolroom in Vyra...Its reflection fills the oval mirror above the leathern couch where my uncle sits, gloating over a tattered book. A sense of security. of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness: a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die." when we compare the iteration of "nothing,"here, and in the closing lines of BS ( where a puddle is a recurring theme and Krug's loving heart), with their metallic twang and "mothing," after "Krug, in a sudden moonburst of madness, understands that ...nothing on earth really matters, there is nothing to fear, and death is but a question of style..."
And, again the contrasting, but equally flashing vision, described in "The Circle": "Suddenly Innokentiy grasped a wonderful fact: nothing is lost, nothing whatever; memory accumulates treasures, stored-up secrets grow in darkness and dust..." **
..........................................................
* additional related quotes, returning to Nina Kressova's selection from BS, help us to understand, through Nabokov's characters, how "various frames of reference pulsate with FitzGerald contractions...How many of us have begun building anew - or thought they were building anew! Then they surveyed their construction. And lo: Heraclitus the Weeping Willow was shimmering by the door and Parmenides the Smoke was coming out of the chimney and Pythagoras (already inside) was drawing the shadows of the window frames on the bright polished floor..." Everything is perpetual motion? Perpetual stillness? A succession of identifiable patterns?
** - From another perspective, the Historian in BS states: "with so many phenomena of time, recurrent combinations are perceptible as such only when they cannot affect us any more - when they are imprisoned so to speak in the past, which is the past just because it is disinfected. To try to map our tomorrows with the help of data supplied by our yesterdays means ignoring the basic element of the future which is its complete nonexistence. The giddy rush of the present into this vacuum is mistaken by us for a rational movement.' ( 'Pure Krugism')."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/