Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014518, Thu, 28 Dec 2006 01:53:37 EST

Subject
Re: shadow of a bird image
Date
Body

In a message dated 28/12/2006 04:25:36 GMT Standard Time,
chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET writes:

I've always pictured a glass roof with the little bird flying against the
slope and the poet looking up. Doesn't make any sense of course now that I
think about it, unless Shade actually lived in a glass house.




Well, I've certainly experienced --- not often, but more than once ---
seeing, or hearing, a bird fly straight into an upright glass windowpane, and then
falling either dead or stunned to the ground outside. There would have to be
a clear reflection of the sky in the pane for the bird to be so deluded.

Looking at the first 12 lines even more closely (yet again!) I really do
find it difficult to make sense, head or tail, of them. "I was the shadow"
Query ? "Shadow"? "I was the smudge of ashen fluff" Query ? "I'd duplicate
myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate" Query ? "Hang all the furniture above the
grass" Query ? Frankly, I'm confused. The lines are definitely striking and
memorable, but I'm beginning to think they are virtually nonsensical.

The contrast with Herbert's poem could hardly be greater, though I think
Shade must also have had Herbert in mind:

The Elixir.

A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.
Clear enough! Crystal clear in fact. Zembla is Heaven.
Jury out.
Charles

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