Subject
VN Birthday: Personal Tributes (fwd)
Date
Body
From: "Daniel Pocklington"
A NON-SCHOLARLY, SOMEWHAT GUSHING TRIBUTE
I had the good fortune to live in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1965 to 1977, a
few pleasant kilometers from Montreux and the penultimate resting place for
the beloved Nabokov.
When too young to understand the difference between a bolshevik and a
belletrist, my family frequented a lakeside restaurant attached to a pension
in Pully, a town near Vevey. It's specialty was filet de perche accompanied
with miracously prepared pomme frites. In fact, I believe this comprised its
entire menu. While dining one evening with an assortment of family friends,
including a plump Englishman and his voracious Greek wife, my father tapped my
shoulder and pointed to a window table which looked down on a paved walk, a
grassy patch, and the hard waters of Lake Geneva. There sat Mr. Nabokov with
what I guess was his wife and a few friends. At least, my father said it was
Nabokov and I certainly could not have known better. He sat with a plate of
assorted fruit. Reading "Pale Fire" many years later, the scene reminded me
of Mr. Kinbote. I mention the Greek wife because I'm sure Mr. Nabokov found
her elevated cackle as bothersome as amusement park noise reaching in through
a shrunken motel door.
On another occasion, while picnicking on an alpine knoll near the summit of
Rocher de Naye, a quick cog-train ride up from Montreux, my father sighted Mr.
Nabokov one more time. I do not recall seeing an emergency net at his side.
As he walked down from the summit, following a trim path, he came within a few
yards of our party, nodded, and went on.
I first read Nabokov in college in Paris. I immediately "got it." On
vacations home to Switzerland I took comfort knowing we shared the same view
of the French Alps (unfortunately, from the French side of the lake,
Switzerland appears quite flat. The Swiss central plateau spills featurelessly
into Lac Leman--I note this because there is a certain element of irony,
though possibly not much). Perhaps we enjoyed romping on the same mountain
meadows and peaks, available at any turn as one heads up the Rhone River
valley. Simply knowing he may be lurking around the next bend was excitement
enough.
Riding the train from Lausanne to a concert in Montreux (Led Zeppelin, when
they were still fresh and Mr. Bonham had not corrupted him drumming) I
happened to sit across the aisle from Dr. Timothy Leary. Apparently he was
headed to exile in Villars, a nice ski area but otherwise unremarkable. As we
stopped in Montreux and I rose to gather at the exit with the other colorfully
dressed concert goers, he remarked to his companion (wife? dealer?) "This is
where Nabokov lives." By that time we were protective of this information
and, like the Swiss fondling Nazi gold, kept this prize to ourselves.
Name dropping aside, what of the tribute mentioned in the subject heading?
Well, simply put: Mr. Nabokov, you have changed my life. A large statement,
but fortunately I do not have to frame myself in scholarly garb and am quite
free to appear foolishly effusive. You taught me how to read, how to find
poetical "detail" in the mundane, how to illuminate the shadows and peel
darkness from grim unforgiving circumstance. I have to take your prose in
sips--gulps overwhelm me. You taught me how to take life one precise word at
a time. For this I am forever indebted to you. Thanks.
Happy birthday.
Daniel Pocklington
208 667 8674
-------------------------------------
EDITORIAL NOTE. Parody is also a kind of tribute.
A NON-SCHOLARLY, SOMEWHAT GUSHING TRIBUTE
I had the good fortune to live in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1965 to 1977, a
few pleasant kilometers from Montreux and the penultimate resting place for
the beloved Nabokov.
When too young to understand the difference between a bolshevik and a
belletrist, my family frequented a lakeside restaurant attached to a pension
in Pully, a town near Vevey. It's specialty was filet de perche accompanied
with miracously prepared pomme frites. In fact, I believe this comprised its
entire menu. While dining one evening with an assortment of family friends,
including a plump Englishman and his voracious Greek wife, my father tapped my
shoulder and pointed to a window table which looked down on a paved walk, a
grassy patch, and the hard waters of Lake Geneva. There sat Mr. Nabokov with
what I guess was his wife and a few friends. At least, my father said it was
Nabokov and I certainly could not have known better. He sat with a plate of
assorted fruit. Reading "Pale Fire" many years later, the scene reminded me
of Mr. Kinbote. I mention the Greek wife because I'm sure Mr. Nabokov found
her elevated cackle as bothersome as amusement park noise reaching in through
a shrunken motel door.
On another occasion, while picnicking on an alpine knoll near the summit of
Rocher de Naye, a quick cog-train ride up from Montreux, my father sighted Mr.
Nabokov one more time. I do not recall seeing an emergency net at his side.
As he walked down from the summit, following a trim path, he came within a few
yards of our party, nodded, and went on.
I first read Nabokov in college in Paris. I immediately "got it." On
vacations home to Switzerland I took comfort knowing we shared the same view
of the French Alps (unfortunately, from the French side of the lake,
Switzerland appears quite flat. The Swiss central plateau spills featurelessly
into Lac Leman--I note this because there is a certain element of irony,
though possibly not much). Perhaps we enjoyed romping on the same mountain
meadows and peaks, available at any turn as one heads up the Rhone River
valley. Simply knowing he may be lurking around the next bend was excitement
enough.
Riding the train from Lausanne to a concert in Montreux (Led Zeppelin, when
they were still fresh and Mr. Bonham had not corrupted him drumming) I
happened to sit across the aisle from Dr. Timothy Leary. Apparently he was
headed to exile in Villars, a nice ski area but otherwise unremarkable. As we
stopped in Montreux and I rose to gather at the exit with the other colorfully
dressed concert goers, he remarked to his companion (wife? dealer?) "This is
where Nabokov lives." By that time we were protective of this information
and, like the Swiss fondling Nazi gold, kept this prize to ourselves.
Name dropping aside, what of the tribute mentioned in the subject heading?
Well, simply put: Mr. Nabokov, you have changed my life. A large statement,
but fortunately I do not have to frame myself in scholarly garb and am quite
free to appear foolishly effusive. You taught me how to read, how to find
poetical "detail" in the mundane, how to illuminate the shadows and peel
darkness from grim unforgiving circumstance. I have to take your prose in
sips--gulps overwhelm me. You taught me how to take life one precise word at
a time. For this I am forever indebted to you. Thanks.
Happy birthday.
Daniel Pocklington
208 667 8674
-------------------------------------
EDITORIAL NOTE. Parody is also a kind of tribute.