rhinterpretations-
Posts tagged vladimir nabokov
“What moment in the gradual decay
Does resurrection chose? What year? What day?
Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?
Are some less lucky, or do all escape?
A syllogism: other men die; but I
Am not another; therefore I’ll not die.
Space is a swarming in the eyes; and time,
A singing in the ears. In this hive I’m
Locked up. Yet, if prior to life we had
Been able to imagine life, what mad,
Impossible, unutterably weird,
Wonderful nonsense it might have appeared!”
Beautiful review of “Lolita” -
“Some say the Great American Novel is Huckleberry Finn, some say it’s The Jungle, some say it’s The Great Gatsby. But my vote goes to the tale with the maximum lust, hypocrisy and obsession — the view of America that could only have come from an outsider — Nabokov’s Lolita. … Those who bought Lolita looking for mere prurient kicks must surely have been disappointed. Lolita is dark and twisted all right, but it’s also a corruptly beautiful love story of two tragically alike, driven souls… What makes Lolita a work of greatness isn’t that it’s title has become ingrained in the vernacular, isn’t that was a generation ahead of America in fetishizing young girls. No, it is the writing, the way Nabokov bounces around in words like the English language is a toy trunk, the sly wit, the way it’s devastating and cynical and heartbreaking all at once. Poor old Dolly Haze might not have grown up very well, but Lolita forever remains a thing of timeless beauty.”
This review is just gorgeous, and why everyone needs to read this book.
Forgive my Nabokov obsession… between Lolita, Taylor Swift and Gossip Girl, you pretty much have the entire contents of my Tumblr.
“So that’s all… I must keep quiet for a little space and then walk very slowly along that bright sand of pain, toward that blue, blue wave. What bliss there is in blueness. I never knew how blue blueness could be. What a mess life has been.”
Here continues my adventure in reading every Nabokov novel in publication…
I finished Despair yesterday, which proved to be a brilliant example of what can be done with the written word, creating art on the canvas of my mind.
Reading his words is like sex, each line captivating with beautiful fluidity.
I am in love.
“Listen: I am ideally happy. My happiness is a kind of challenge. As I wander along the streets and the squares and the paths by the canal, absently sensing the lips of dampness through my worn soles, I carry proudly my ineffable happiness. The centuries will roll by, and schoolboys will yawn over the history of our upheavals; everything will pass, but my happiness, dear, my happiness will remain, in the moist reflection of a street lamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal’s black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness.”
I love this man.
His flow… flawless.
