Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014119, Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:01:11 -0500

Subject
PD to SKB on otherworldly logic
From
Date
Body
Dear Stan,

I overlooked your post, and found it just today. Actually my problem was
simply that I didn't think the sentence problematical. It seemed
perfectly
clear to me at first reading. I only provided the gloss on Nabokov's
remark
because Carolyn seemed puzzled. The background noise I sketched out
served
merely to embed the viewpoint in his otherwise straightforward remark in
a
deeper, intricate history, the hinterland of the relationship of words
to
Being, and non-Being. I don't think therefore the words oblique or that
they
allude to abstruse problems in our logical tradition.Like the issue of
'will' strenuously debated here, the answer was there from the
beginning.
Nabokov is a challenging author in many regards, but sometimes people
overread or read in complexities where simple native linguistic tact
will
yield the obvious answer.

Peter Dale

> Let's call VN's Statement P:
> > "I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can
express
> > would not have been expressed, had I not known more."
>
> I do appreciate your careful analysis. As you indicate, it's an
ancient
> philosophical-epistemological-linguistical-more-yet problem that can
be
> coarsly summed up as 'the limitations of language' or, by pessimists,
as
> 'the curse of language'

Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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