JM: Anamorphic converging mirrors for outspreading evils don't always exist, even in novels whose structure establishes definite beginnings and definite ends.
 
Well said. 
 
JM: Perhaps an 'unobstructed view' and 'ontological stability' (isn't this search related to the Aristotelic definition "Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei"? ) are seldom attainable.
 
Yes, though maybe it bears stressing that this seems to have been Nabokov's insight--one of the things his fiction discloses.
 
JM: Existential evasiveness, as you said, can be pernicious or benign. But when is the time ripe to take an attitude and interfere? In B.S. Nabokov intervened to save Krug by visiting madness upon him, and granting him a glimpse into his creator's "paradise." 
 
I'm not sure what kind of intervention you're suggesting, but maybe the many articles that speak to these issues--searching for the "real" in Nabokov's fiction--can be counted as acts of such intervention. It seems that any attempt to track the problem is already a step toward enlightenment (such as it is).
 
And I was thinking about something: I don't think it necessarily follows that, because Nabokov tampers so thoroughly with the real, his work ends in nihilism or complete moral relativism (or a Nietzschean amorality). On the contrary, there seems to be an essential link between anamorphism and both art and immortality. Anamorphosis seems to be the precondition for the former, and offers intimations of the latter (the possibility of immortality--perhaps death entails a kind of all-encompassing experience of anamorphosis). These are ultimately benevolent regions for Nabokov. I suppose it's possible too to work out some sort of ethical equation: that is, N's fiction asks us to separate the pernicious from the benign delusion, or that it defines the pernicious as the imposition of one's own delusion onto another (which would link Humbert to Paduk, in a way), but I don't think it's necessary to go that far (or at least, this is where I prefer to get off the train). But maybe this isn't why you were suggesting that we "take an attitude and interfere."
 

 

Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 14:42:39 -0300
From: jansy@AETERN.US
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Distortions and slanting views
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Bruce Stone: "...this special "inconclusiveness" of Nabokov's fiction reminds me of the passage in Invitation to a Beheading [...] "You cannot see anything. I tried it too." N's fiction often frustrates the search for a clear, unobstructed view...in lieu of ontological stabilty. ...Cincinnatus does...catch glimpses of what's out there--even if these are only "partial conclusions." [...] "... if we make the effort to track the distortions in the text, to arrive at something closer to the truth, then the novel has in some sense visited this problem of perception upon its readers[....]In Lolita, this sharing in the crisis of perception is especially disconcerting, because in this regard Humbert's insanity is representative of a larger, perhaps universal dilemma. ...we should note that this existential evasiveness can be pernicious or benign, depending on the context. In any case, Nabokov's own pronouncements about reality--for example, that it begins "to rot and stink" unless its surface is animated by subjective perception--seem to cover both his fictional and our "real" worlds."
 
JM: Anamorphic converging mirrors for outspreading evils don't always exist, even in novels whose structure establishes definite beginnings and  definite ends. Perhaps an 'unobstructed view' and 'ontological stability' (isn't this search related to the Aristotelic definition "Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei"? ) are seldom attainable.
Existential evasiveness, as you said, can be pernicious or benign. But when is the time ripe to take an attitude and interfere? In B.S. Nabokov intervened to save Krug by visiting madness upon him, and granting him a glimpse into his creator's "paradise." 
Trying to get a digital short-cut to your N-quote, I reached a possible "VN-sighting".
I found the quote: "Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived texture." (Vladimir Nabokov, from an interview)" in an article by Joyce Carol Oates in ".The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath" THE DEATH THROES OF ROMANTICISM: The Poetry of Sylvia ... work.restory.net/.../Oates%20- ... 
I discovered it, at last,* with no need to browse thru the body of his published strong opinions: Nabokov's interview. (09) BBC-2 [1968]  www.kulichki.com/moshkow/.../Inter09.txtEm cache -
 
............................................................................................................
* - There is a sense, in all your fiction, of the  imagined being  so  much  truer  than boring old reality. Do you see the categories of imagination, dream, and reality as distinct  and, if so, in what way?  Your  use  of the word "reality" perplexes me. To be sure, there is an average reality, perceived by all of us,  but  that is  not  true reality: it is only the reality of general ideas, conventional forms of humdrummery, current editorials.  Now  if you  mean  by  "old  reality"  the  so-called  "realism" of old novels, the easy platitudes of Balzac or Somerset Maugham or D. H. Lawrence-- to take  some  especially  depressing  examples-- then  you  are  right in suggesting that the reality faked by a
mediocre performer is boring, and that imaginary worlds acquire by contrast a dreamy and unreal aspect. Paradoxically, the only real, authentic worlds are, of course, those that seem unusual. When my fancies will have  been  sufficiently  imitated,  they, too,  will  enter  the  common domain of average reality, which will be false, too, but within a new context  which  we  cannot yet  guess.  Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived texture. 
     Would it be fair to say that you see  life  as  a  very funny but cruel joke?  
Your  term  "life" is used in a sense which I cannot apply to a manifold shimmer. Whose life? What  life?  Life  does  not exist  without a possessive epithet...My own life has been incomparably happier and healthier  than  that  of  Genghis  Khan...As to the lives of my characters, not all are grotesque and not all  are  tragic:  Fyodor  in  The Gift   is  blessed  with  a  faithful  love  and  an  early recognition of his genius; John Shade in Pale Fire leads an intense inner existence, far removed from what you  call  a joke. You must be confusing me with Dostoevski.
 
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All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.