Subject
Fw: Parenthetical Images
From
Date
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----- Original Message -----
EDNOTE. A typology (both syn- and diachronic) of VN's parentheses stylistic
(Russian & English) might turn up some interesting data. I have recently
written a paper touching on this. It should be upon a web site fairly soon.
----------------------------------------------
From: "Michael Donohue" <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> My high school students, who've usually been taught to avoid excessive
> parentheses (rumored to be lazy clarifiers) in their own writing, have
often
> noticed this peculiar Nabokovian talent. Does anyone know of any writer
> before VN who used parentheses so artfully? Certainly there are later
> ones--Martin Amis, among others--but they probably all learned it from VN.
>
> I reckon that "picnic, lightning" is the best known. But he doesn't just
use
> the ( ) to make oval portraits. Look at the variety of its uses (and
imagine
> these sentences without their parenthetical interruptions):
>
> "...she suddenly shot me a wire, requesting me to accept Prof. H (!) and
> Prof. C. (!!) as co-editors of her husband▓s poem." [Best when read aloud]
>
> "There is no earthly reason why I should dally with her in the margin of
> this sinister memoir, but let me say (hi, Rita---wherever you are, drunk
or
> hungoverish, Rita, hi!) that she was the most soothing, the most
> comprehending companion that I ever had, and certainly saved me from the
> madhouse."
>
> "For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it afford me what I shall
> bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere,
> connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness,
> kindness, ecstasy) is the norm."
>
> "A few more words about Mrs. Humbert while the going is good (a bad
accident
> is to happen quite soon)."
>
> "A hazy blue view beyond railings on a mountain pass, and the backs of a
> family enjoying it (with Lo, in a hot, happy, wild, intense, hopeful,
> hopeless whisper---'Look, the McCrystals, please, let▓s talk to them,
> please'---let▓s talk to them, reader!---'please, I▓ll do anything you
want,
> oh please. . .')."
>
> "In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself, during the last
ten
> years, never to remember Mira Belochkin≈not because, in itself, the
> evocation of a youthful love affair, banal and brief, threatened his peace
> of mind (alas, recollections of his marriage to Liza were imperious enough
> to crowd out any former romance), but because, if one were quite sincere
> with oneself, no conscience, and hence no consciousness, could be expected
> to subsist in a world where such things as Mira▓s death were possible."
> [dodging over-solemnity---breaking the sentence's fall, so to speak---with
> the reference to Liza.]
>
> Any ideas where he learned this? Is this kind of thing more normal in
> Russian prose?
>
> Mike Donohue
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jacob Wilkenfeld
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 4:36 PM
> > Subject: Parenthetical Images
> >
> >
> > Dear List,
> > I was wondering whether VN's striking use of two short, clarifying
> >images within a set of parentheses (forming a miniature oval canvas) was
> >his own invention or if it had a precursor in literature. Has anyone
> >coined a term for such a literary device? I have in mind the kind of
> >designation that VN used when he described in his Lectures on Literature
> >the features of Tolstoy's style: eg, "the functional ethical comparison."
> >How about "the parenthetical oval portrait"? (Though I guess that label
> >would misleadingly conjure up the Edgar Allan Poe story in the reader's
> >mind).
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Jacob Wilkenfeld
> >
> >
> >
> > "Then came a small square (four benches, a bed of pansies) round which
> >the trolley steered with rasping disapproval." -from 'The Aurelian'
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
EDNOTE. A typology (both syn- and diachronic) of VN's parentheses stylistic
(Russian & English) might turn up some interesting data. I have recently
written a paper touching on this. It should be upon a web site fairly soon.
----------------------------------------------
From: "Michael Donohue" <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> My high school students, who've usually been taught to avoid excessive
> parentheses (rumored to be lazy clarifiers) in their own writing, have
often
> noticed this peculiar Nabokovian talent. Does anyone know of any writer
> before VN who used parentheses so artfully? Certainly there are later
> ones--Martin Amis, among others--but they probably all learned it from VN.
>
> I reckon that "picnic, lightning" is the best known. But he doesn't just
use
> the ( ) to make oval portraits. Look at the variety of its uses (and
imagine
> these sentences without their parenthetical interruptions):
>
> "...she suddenly shot me a wire, requesting me to accept Prof. H (!) and
> Prof. C. (!!) as co-editors of her husband▓s poem." [Best when read aloud]
>
> "There is no earthly reason why I should dally with her in the margin of
> this sinister memoir, but let me say (hi, Rita---wherever you are, drunk
or
> hungoverish, Rita, hi!) that she was the most soothing, the most
> comprehending companion that I ever had, and certainly saved me from the
> madhouse."
>
> "For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it afford me what I shall
> bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere,
> connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness,
> kindness, ecstasy) is the norm."
>
> "A few more words about Mrs. Humbert while the going is good (a bad
accident
> is to happen quite soon)."
>
> "A hazy blue view beyond railings on a mountain pass, and the backs of a
> family enjoying it (with Lo, in a hot, happy, wild, intense, hopeful,
> hopeless whisper---'Look, the McCrystals, please, let▓s talk to them,
> please'---let▓s talk to them, reader!---'please, I▓ll do anything you
want,
> oh please. . .')."
>
> "In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself, during the last
ten
> years, never to remember Mira Belochkin≈not because, in itself, the
> evocation of a youthful love affair, banal and brief, threatened his peace
> of mind (alas, recollections of his marriage to Liza were imperious enough
> to crowd out any former romance), but because, if one were quite sincere
> with oneself, no conscience, and hence no consciousness, could be expected
> to subsist in a world where such things as Mira▓s death were possible."
> [dodging over-solemnity---breaking the sentence's fall, so to speak---with
> the reference to Liza.]
>
> Any ideas where he learned this? Is this kind of thing more normal in
> Russian prose?
>
> Mike Donohue
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jacob Wilkenfeld
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 4:36 PM
> > Subject: Parenthetical Images
> >
> >
> > Dear List,
> > I was wondering whether VN's striking use of two short, clarifying
> >images within a set of parentheses (forming a miniature oval canvas) was
> >his own invention or if it had a precursor in literature. Has anyone
> >coined a term for such a literary device? I have in mind the kind of
> >designation that VN used when he described in his Lectures on Literature
> >the features of Tolstoy's style: eg, "the functional ethical comparison."
> >How about "the parenthetical oval portrait"? (Though I guess that label
> >would misleadingly conjure up the Edgar Allan Poe story in the reader's
> >mind).
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Jacob Wilkenfeld
> >
> >
> >
> > "Then came a small square (four benches, a bed of pansies) round which
> >the trolley steered with rasping disapproval." -from 'The Aurelian'
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>