Well, I had trouble finding a specific quote that demonstrates this... so I'm chosing to write about the title of the work instead... I hope that's okay.
Nabokov's title, "Speak, Memory," evokes a sense of something to come, something about to happen, a sense that a dam is about to let go. I think it is this sense of anticipation that makes this book so engaging for me. I feel like just on the other side of the page some gem will be presented to the reader, and you just have to be on the look-out for it... it's almost like Christmas, but with less mistletoe. I mean, obviously I'm exaggerating, but I really do have this feeling of wanting to know what's next, wanting to discover the next profound statement.
I guess what I'm trying to point out is that by employing this technique Nabokov invites the reader into his private world, which makes each story seem like a gift to us. It is as though he's invited us along for a tour through his memory, and we're privaleged to be there because it's really a private conversation between him and his memory.
Is this making sense?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Cars
"This informal contact between train and city was one part of the thrill. The other was putting myself in the place of some passer-by who, I imagined, was moved as I would be moved myself to see the long, romantic, auburn cars, with their intervestibular connectiong curtains as black as bat wings and their metal lettering copper-bright in the low sun, unhurriedly negotiate an iron bridge across an everyday thoroughfare and then turn, with all windows suddenly ablaze, around a last block of houses." (Chatper 7, page 144)
1. Periodic sentence?
2. I found this particular passage to be of greater significance than it may seem because of its implications. Nabokov, once again proving his great imagination, places himself in the mind of a stranger and assumes to know, or pretends to know, what they are thinking. The reason I find this so interesting is because I tend to do this myself. Often times, while driving down the interstate, I'll see all different cars: different makes and models, different license plates, different conditions, bumper stickers, and different people inside. Sometimes I can't help but imagine where they might be either going to or coming from, or what their lives might be like. This passage also mentions cars, but cars of a train connecting different countries rather than automobiles without a known destination. I also find it interesting that this is something his memory has captured and retained all these years as an exciting moment in his life, and with so much detail. Cars are literal objects that take us from one physical location to another (whether train or automobile), but can also be used in this instance as a metaphorical transition from one part of his life to another.
1. Periodic sentence?
2. I found this particular passage to be of greater significance than it may seem because of its implications. Nabokov, once again proving his great imagination, places himself in the mind of a stranger and assumes to know, or pretends to know, what they are thinking. The reason I find this so interesting is because I tend to do this myself. Often times, while driving down the interstate, I'll see all different cars: different makes and models, different license plates, different conditions, bumper stickers, and different people inside. Sometimes I can't help but imagine where they might be either going to or coming from, or what their lives might be like. This passage also mentions cars, but cars of a train connecting different countries rather than automobiles without a known destination. I also find it interesting that this is something his memory has captured and retained all these years as an exciting moment in his life, and with so much detail. Cars are literal objects that take us from one physical location to another (whether train or automobile), but can also be used in this instance as a metaphorical transition from one part of his life to another.
autobiography can take many forms
"...poems are autobiography... and comment, the metronomic alternation of anecdote and response."
-Louise Glück
-Louise Glück
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