Nabokov's Nostalgia

"The story of my college years in England is really the story of my trying to become a Russian writer. I had the feeling that Cambridge and all its famed features, venerable elms, blazoned windows, loquacious tower clocks, were of no consequence in themselves but existed merely to frame and support my rich nostalgia. Emotionally, I was in the position of a man who, having just lost a fond kinswoman, realized, too late, that through some laziness of the routine-drugged human soul, he had neither troubled to know her as fully as she deserved, nor had shown her in full the marks of his not quite conscious then, but now unrelieved, affection...And I thought of all I had missed in my country, of the things I would not have omitted to note and treasure, had I suspected before that my life was to veer in such a violent way."

(Page 261)

I suppose this passage caught my attention, because it reminded me of the time in my life that really developed my desire of wanting to be a writer. My high school years made me take a nostalgic look back at my carefree childhood in an Idaho small town. High school made me want to escape back to that time in my life that was seemingly stressless (I don't know if that's a word!) and when everyone seemed to know and admire me. My high school years ignited a fire in me that seemed to burn in the direction of my past. It's smoke pointed to the times in my life that were simpler. I knew then that I wanted to write those memories down, cherish and keep them forever, either for myself in a diary of sorts, or share them with the world. Perhaps some day I will, but I know exactly what Nabokov was feeling. When I moved to New Hampshire, I felt like a girl without a real home. New Hampshire was as foreign to me as the Far East and that is what made me yearn for the 1990s, the years when I didn't have to worry about exams, career paths, and what to make for dinner.

I also love Nabokov's personification usage in this passage. He personifies his time spent in Russia by using the kinswoman metaphor. The kinswoman (his past) leaves him and he didn't realize how much he had adored and appreciated it until it was long gone. You never know how great something is until it's gone. Sometimes we forget to appreciate life's pleasant, simple surprises, because we become so caught up in the turmoil going on around us and the difficult decisions we are forced to make every day.