Subject
'truck of traveling circus' (fwd)
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From: George Shimanovich <gshiman@worldnet.att.net>
Rereading Nabokov, on happy occasion, I make personal discoveries, as a
reader (and that's what I am). Such discoveries are particularly striking
when positioned as minor elements in the surrounding framework of text.
Somehow by projecting the text backward from that minor point much bigger
picture comes into focus and stays there until improved further.
One example of such reverse projection for me is 'the truck of a travelling
circus' in the last statement of 'Spring in Fialta'.
At the end of that story we learn that Nina died when 'the yellow car' of
Ferdinand's friend (Segur) 'run at full speed into the truck of a travelling
circus entering the town'. Now, 'gesticulating Ferd' boldly traveling in
the car of Segur, 'a lover of art and a perfect fool', Nina, her body
keeps folding Z-wise, with resurrected ashtray at her feet, Victor
(victorious?!) fearlessly choosing his Doberman's world with its garlands
and cane over impractical life with Nina, - this rotating world is the
real circus of the story. It is all too bad to see the awkward smile 'like
a bat' passing through Nina's face, the face of the Columbina.
One circus is leaving dissolving Fialta, - another is entering.
Nina dies. Changing tense to present 'something lovely, delicate, and
unrepeatable is being wasted' ... 'and a tomato-nosed clown is walking a
tightrope, balancing an umbrella ornamented with those recurrent stars - a
vague symbolic recollection of the heavenly fatherland of circus
performers'. The color of the car is yellow.
Sincerely,
George Shimanovich
Rereading Nabokov, on happy occasion, I make personal discoveries, as a
reader (and that's what I am). Such discoveries are particularly striking
when positioned as minor elements in the surrounding framework of text.
Somehow by projecting the text backward from that minor point much bigger
picture comes into focus and stays there until improved further.
One example of such reverse projection for me is 'the truck of a travelling
circus' in the last statement of 'Spring in Fialta'.
At the end of that story we learn that Nina died when 'the yellow car' of
Ferdinand's friend (Segur) 'run at full speed into the truck of a travelling
circus entering the town'. Now, 'gesticulating Ferd' boldly traveling in
the car of Segur, 'a lover of art and a perfect fool', Nina, her body
keeps folding Z-wise, with resurrected ashtray at her feet, Victor
(victorious?!) fearlessly choosing his Doberman's world with its garlands
and cane over impractical life with Nina, - this rotating world is the
real circus of the story. It is all too bad to see the awkward smile 'like
a bat' passing through Nina's face, the face of the Columbina.
One circus is leaving dissolving Fialta, - another is entering.
Nina dies. Changing tense to present 'something lovely, delicate, and
unrepeatable is being wasted' ... 'and a tomato-nosed clown is walking a
tightrope, balancing an umbrella ornamented with those recurrent stars - a
vague symbolic recollection of the heavenly fatherland of circus
performers'. The color of the car is yellow.
Sincerely,
George Shimanovich