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Transparent Things
"Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero - sullen, gawky Hugh Person - to Switzerland... As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride... Eight years later - following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment - Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past... The several strands of dream, memory, and time [are] set off against the literary theorizing of R. and, more centrally, against the world of observable objects." Martin Amis
105 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Vladimir Nabokov
719 books13.5k followersRussian:
Владимир Владимирович Набоков
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Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery, and had a big interest in chess problems.
Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works.
Lolita was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery, and had a big interest in chess problems.
Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works.
Lolita was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 378 reviews
December 25, 2019
Things of our life… Things of the past…
Transparent Things is a psychoanalytical comedy of manners… Dark, but comedy anyway.
Hugh Person – the main hero – is an original but he doesn’t belong among the fittest… He falls in love and he desperately fights for the object of his passion.
He wins but is his triumph a guarantee of success?
Quite often the things we fight for and manage to obtain turn afterwards into a source of our ruination…
When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines!
Transparent Things is a psychoanalytical comedy of manners… Dark, but comedy anyway.
Hugh Person – the main hero – is an original but he doesn’t belong among the fittest… He falls in love and he desperately fights for the object of his passion.
Our Person was obstinate and monstrously in love. A fairy-tale element seemed to imbue with its Gothic rose water all attempts to scale the battlements of her Dragon. Next week he made it and thereafter established himself as less of a nuisance.
He wins but is his triumph a guarantee of success?
He loved her in spite of her unlovableness. Armande had many trying, though not necessarily rare, traits, all of which he accepted as absurd clues in a clever puzzle.
Quite often the things we fight for and manage to obtain turn afterwards into a source of our ruination…
April 28, 2013
A perfect novella. You can have your 1,000+ page encyclopedic mammoths of verbose density of such mind-warpage that you must compile dictionaries of new concepts and schematized flow charts of character interrelations (and I can have them too); but sometimes 105 pages of flawless, tautly interwoven pulses of prose is all that's required to send a lover of words into ecstasy. Transparent Things also happens to be a concise formulation and summation of the ineffable eternal crystalwork that is 'Nabokov's metaphysics', of which I've written copiously on this here Goodreads site (all gratis, for free, I haven't even asked for one green dollar!), so I won't repeat myself. By the way, did you know that the sum total of all material reality, with all its component parts, adds up to a big fat ZERO, and that we make fictions so that there is some positive net gain, some charge above the flatline, so that this grim furnace of dumb bodies we call the world isn't totally and inexorably pointless, voiceless, and doomed? Read this book in one sitting. That's all.
October 17, 2022
1972.....Hmm, something tells me this Novella would have been more greatly appreciated had it been written around 1952. The territory of Nabokov's peak, and his greatest achievements as a writer. This was my second Vlad in a week, and sad to say it had nothing on the brilliant 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight'. Transparent Things received some marmite reviews by the critics back in the seventies (most of which Nabokov laughed off) and while I won't go as far as marmite (which I dislike) this still felt like a well buttered up piece of toast, minus the deluxe strawberry conserve of his better novels.
Despite some Lolita era passages of writing, which may I add don't crop up often enough, the Bumbling, somnambulant protagonist, Hugh Person (someone I never particularly cared for) impishly, like a fallen maestro, digresses throughout of an ill-fated trip to Switzerland. The journey is not only actually, but also one of mixed memories. Hugh has been to Switzerland before: once, in childhood, when his father fell down dead on a shopping trip; on another occasion to visit an author, R, through whom he connects with the woman who will be his wife. Later still, his final trip sheds light, and reckoning, on the murder and madness which is at the heart of this dizzying and cleverly done Novella, that is obviously designed to be re-read. Because on first servings, it didn't quite work for me.
There was also a moment where I didn't exactly feel comfortable in the most comfiest of armchairs,(Nabokov's obsession with nymphets again) when Persons is looking lecherously at photographs of his wife Armande as a 10-year-old girl. On a good note, Person’s ache at the passing of time and the lost past, which cannot be recaptured, gives the Novella a heavy hand of nostalgia, which is symptomatic of the Chronophobia present in much of Nabokov’s writing. And the notion of being able to retain the past in the present, as the narrator does, is clearly an appealing thought to anyone who mourns the passing of time. As I am sure we all do.
Nabokov's prose is efficient enough, but not as good as his earlier work (guess time caught up with him as well), and altogether I found it a strange and difficult book. It could be looked at as some sort of joke, with Nabokov toying with us and the critics, or maybe it's a more personal meditation? Anyway, it's anything but transparent, for me though, Transparent Things is not in the same league as the Nabokov Novels I have come to hugely admire.
November 23, 2023
'Transparent Things' is Navokov's penultimate novel - a rather short text which I found more difficult than other Nabokov's works as it is hard to follow the author's, the narrator's and the protagonist's separate paths, their search of lost time, desire to relive memories, negotiate with death and experience what is hereafter and many many other thoughts, theories, insights, even jokes (not transparent things) hidden between and beyond the lines.
The best thing about any of Nabokov's work that always resonates with me is his incredible writing.
'Now flames were mounting the stairs, in pairs, in trios, in redskin file, hand in hand, tongue after tongue, conversing and humming happily. It was not, though, the heat of their flicker, but the acrid dark smoke that caused Person to retreat back into the room; excuse me, said a polite flamelet holding open the door he was vainly trying to close. The window banged with such force that its panes broke into a torrent of rubies, and he realized before choking to death that a storm outside was aiding the inside fire.
At last, suffocation made him try to get out by climbing out and down, but there were no ledges or balconies on that side of the roaring house. As he reached the window a long lavender-tipped flame danced up to stop him with a graceful gesture of its gloved hand. Crumbling partitions of plaster and wood allowed human cries to reach him, and one of his last wrong ideas was that those were the shouts of people anxious to help him, and not the howls of fellow men. Rings of blurred colors circled around him, reminding him briefly of a childhood picture in a frightening book about triumphant vegetables whirling faster and faster around a nightshirted boy trying desperately to awake from the iridescent dizziness of dream life. Its ultimate vision was the incandescence of a book or a box grown completely transparent and hollow. This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being to another. Easy, you know, does it, son.'
The best thing about any of Nabokov's work that always resonates with me is his incredible writing.
'Now flames were mounting the stairs, in pairs, in trios, in redskin file, hand in hand, tongue after tongue, conversing and humming happily. It was not, though, the heat of their flicker, but the acrid dark smoke that caused Person to retreat back into the room; excuse me, said a polite flamelet holding open the door he was vainly trying to close. The window banged with such force that its panes broke into a torrent of rubies, and he realized before choking to death that a storm outside was aiding the inside fire.
At last, suffocation made him try to get out by climbing out and down, but there were no ledges or balconies on that side of the roaring house. As he reached the window a long lavender-tipped flame danced up to stop him with a graceful gesture of its gloved hand. Crumbling partitions of plaster and wood allowed human cries to reach him, and one of his last wrong ideas was that those were the shouts of people anxious to help him, and not the howls of fellow men. Rings of blurred colors circled around him, reminding him briefly of a childhood picture in a frightening book about triumphant vegetables whirling faster and faster around a nightshirted boy trying desperately to awake from the iridescent dizziness of dream life. Its ultimate vision was the incandescence of a book or a box grown completely transparent and hollow. This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being to another. Easy, you know, does it, son.'
July 2, 2015
Revolving around man's numerous excursions to Switzerland, this incredibly short novel serves as the perfect paint-sampler into Nabokov's later works. As with most of Nabokov's work, the plot is weird and highly original and of course his prose complements it perfectly. Sometimes I read Nabokov and I come across a phrase or a piece of writing describing something and it makes me stop, because it is so simple but so genius that I cannot comprehend how the human mind ever thought of such a series of words. That happened a lot in this work. Nabokov was a genius.
August 3, 2023
4.5
Human life can be compared to a person dancing in a variety of forms around his own self.
Transparent Things is a gateway to the mind and memories of a young American proofreader.
The story unravels in a vague and confusing Nabokovian style, and we are told the reasons for our clumsy and lumbering protagonist’s four visits to a specific village in Switzerland.
Another thing we are not supposed to do is to explain the inexplicable. Men have learned to live with a black burden, a huge aching hump: the supposition that “reality” may be only a “dream.” How much more dreadful it would be if the very awareness of your being aware of reality’s dreamlike nature were also a dream, a built-in hallucination! One should bear in mind, however, that there is no mirage without a vanishing point, just as there is no lake without a closed circle of reliable land.
This is a story about love, passage of time and madness; about transparency of mind versus obscurity; about dreams as opposed to reality.
Human life can be compared to a person dancing in a variety of forms around his own self.
Transparent Things is a gateway to the mind and memories of a young American proofreader.
The story unravels in a vague and confusing Nabokovian style, and we are told the reasons for our clumsy and lumbering protagonist’s four visits to a specific village in Switzerland.
Another thing we are not supposed to do is to explain the inexplicable. Men have learned to live with a black burden, a huge aching hump: the supposition that “reality” may be only a “dream.” How much more dreadful it would be if the very awareness of your being aware of reality’s dreamlike nature were also a dream, a built-in hallucination! One should bear in mind, however, that there is no mirage without a vanishing point, just as there is no lake without a closed circle of reliable land.
This is a story about love, passage of time and madness; about transparency of mind versus obscurity; about dreams as opposed to reality.
February 25, 2011
I read this exhilarating novella in a two-hour burst, knees bumped with bliss, hands clasped in delight, eyes lacquered to the page.
This is Nabokov's penultimate novel, before the "doddery" (so says Martin Amis) Look at the Harelquins, and not including his unfinished posthumous one, The Original of Laura. This is part of his trilogy of "nympholepsy novels" (so says Amis again), and shows the cartwheeling prose gymnastics of the last great Russian writer at their finest.
Essential.
This is Nabokov's penultimate novel, before the "doddery" (so says Martin Amis) Look at the Harelquins, and not including his unfinished posthumous one, The Original of Laura. This is part of his trilogy of "nympholepsy novels" (so says Amis again), and shows the cartwheeling prose gymnastics of the last great Russian writer at their finest.
Essential.
October 14, 2020
"Διαφανή αντικείμενα είναι εκείνα που επιτρέπουν στο φως να περάσει μέσα από αυτά. Ανάλογα με την πυκνότητα των μορίων των υλικών, η ποσότητα φωτός που μπορεί να περάσει ποικίλλει. Αυτό καθορίζει εάν ένα υλικό είναι αδιαφανές, διαφανές ή ημιδιαφανές".
Εφόσον αναζητούμε ένα στοιχείο που θα προσδώσει στο βιβλίο του Ναμπόκοφ κάποια αρχική κατανόηση "περί τίνος πρόκειται", έχουμε στη διάθεσή μας τον τίτλο του έργου (και τον ορισμό από Wikipedia). Εις μάτην βεβαίως, δεδομένου πως οι απαντήσεις στους Ναμποκοφ-ικούς γρίφους ποτέ δεν είναι τόσο προφανείς, και ο διάβολος πάντα κρύβεται στις λεπτομέρειες. Τίποτα δεν χαρίζεται στον αναγνώστη που προσεγγίζει το έργο του Δασκάλου με μειωμένες προσδοκίες, έτοιμα σχήματα κατανόησης και αντίληψης περί της αναγνωστικής διαδρομής.
Το εναρκτήριο κεφάλαιο προκάλεσε στον γράφοντα έκρηξη γέλωτα, καθώς τορπιλίζει άμεσα κάθε προσπάθεια άμεσης προσέγγισης και προσέλκυσης. Η πλειονότητα των συγγραφέων -όχι αποκλειστικά των ευπώλητων- ανοίγουν την παρτίδα επιθετικά, ρίχνουν στη μάχη το βαρύ πυροβολικό τους, επιχειρώντας να παρασύρουν άμεσα το βιαστικό και ασθμαίνον κοινό στο πόνημά τους. Πρόκειται για έναν αγώνα δρόμου, προκειμένου να κερδίσουν την ελλιπή προσοχή του σύγχρονου αναγνώστη που αναμένει την απόλαυση ήδη από το πρώτο κεφάλαιο, τις πρώτες σελίδες του βιβλίου που αγόρασε. Σε διαφορετική περίπτωση, θα στραφεί στην παρακείμενη εκθαμβωτική οθόνη που το κάλεσμά της απαρνήθηκε προς ώρας. Και για να μην τον αδικώ (με γενικεύσεις πρόδηλες δικών μου εμμονών), ο εκάστοτε αναγνώστης είναι τελικά πιο πρόθυμος να επιλέξει κάποιο άλλο βιβλίο που ε��ναι έτοιμο να του παραδώσει τα κάλλη του από τις εναρκτήριες ήδη παραγράφους.
Αντ' αυτού, ο Ναμπόκοφ τραβάει αδίστακτα το χαλί κάτω από τα πόδια: Αναφέρεται σε κάποιον Άνθρωπο (καταλαβαίνουμε στη συνέχεια πως πρόκειται για τον βασικό ήρωα, ονόματι Πέρσον) και εν συνεχεία μιλάει για τον χρόνο (το παρελθόν και το μέλλον), αλλά και τα διάφανα αντικείμενα – "εκείνα στα οποία μπορούμε να επικεντρωθούμε, ώστε να διεισδύσουμε άθελά μας στην ιστορία του αντικειμένου… Διαφανή αντικείμενα μέσα από τα οποία το παρελθό�� ακτινοβολεί!". Μας υπόσχεται πως επ' αυτών θα υπάρξει συνέχεια εντός ολίγου, υπόσχεση που αθετεί -εν μέρει- βεβαίως.
Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι μικρό σε μέγεθος (μόλις 150 σελίδες), ε��τούτοις αυτό δεν διευκολύνει στο ελάχιστο την ανάγνωσή του (ίσως είναι το πιο στριφνό έργο του). Όχι πως υπάρχει κάτι ανυπέρβλητο από πλευράς ύφους - η όποια δυσκολία του Ναμπόκοφ έγκειται στον τρόπο με τον οποίο αποφεύγει το προφανές και εστιάζει στο αφανές, στα μετεικάσματα, στα είδωλα. Στις κορυφαίες του στιγμές δείχνει σαν να βιάζεται να ξεμπερδέψει με την πλοκή, με το "τι έγινε τελικά;", ώστε να επανέλθει στο πώς. Αν υπάρχει κάποια κατάληξη, ο συγγραφέας συνήθως την επισημαίνει εξαρχής, προκειμένου να επιδοθεί απερίσπαστος στην πορεία που οδηγεί εκεί.
Σπανίως θα βρει ο αναγνώστης πρωταγωνιστές και δευτεραγωνιστές άμεσα συμπαθείς και ταυτίσιμους (η μόνη εξαίρεση που θυμάμαι είναι ο ήρωας της "Δόξας") στα έργα του Ναμπόκοφ. Στο εν λόγω βιβλίο, καίτοι το έχουμε ήδη συμπεράνει από τα γραφόμενα, ο συγγραφέας σε κάποιο σημείο τονίζει πως ο ήρωάς μας δεν είναι ένας συμπαθής και, εδώ που τα λέμε, όχι ιδιαίτερα καλός άνθρωπος. Βεβαίως το αυτό ισχύει και για τους συνοδευτικούς χαρακτήρες (ιδίως για τη σύζυγο του, η οποία είναι εξαρχής αντιπαθής).
Ο Ναμπόκοφ πριονίζει ένα επιπλέον κλαδί κάτω από τα πόδια του ανώριμου (σύμφωνα με τα λεγόμενά του) αναγνώστη που επιζητά την ταύτιση με τον ήρωα και εν συνεχεία με την πλοκή. Πάγια τακτική του συγγραφέα που ενδιαφέρεται αποκλειστικά για την ταύτιση του αναγνώστη με τον ίδιο, με το όραμά του, με τον προσωπικό του τρόπο θέασης και καταγραφής της μυθιστορηματικής -και ποτέ της ρεαλιστικής- πραγματικότητας.
Όπως έχει σωστά ειπωθεί, κάθε μεγάλος καλλιτέχνης δημιουργεί -και επανέρχεται- στο ίδιο πάντα έργο. Εν μέρει αληθές το απόφθεγμα, κρύβει δύο σημεία ενδιαφέροντος: Πρώτον, οι εμμονές οφείλουν να είναι σταθερές και να αρδεύουν… εμμονικά το έργο του. Δεύτερον, ανεξαρτήτως της όποιας θεματολογίας του, ο συγκολλητικός ιστός, το ιδιαίτερο αφηγηματικό του ύφος, καθιστά ευχάριστα προβλέψιμη την επαφή μαζί του (όσο κι αν επιχειρεί να απομακρυνθεί από αυτό). Ο Ναμπόκοφ ως μεγάλος λογοτέχνης δεν αρνείται τις όποιες εμμονές του – αρκείται σε αυτές και τις επαναφέρει τακτικά στα έργα του προς τέρψιν ημών των θαυμαστών του.
Στα "Διαφανή αντικείμενα" ο ήρωας του επιστρέφει. Και επιστρέφει ξανά και ξανά στη χώρα (Ελβετία) που τον καθόρισε ως νέο. Κάθε επιστροφή όμως είναι και μια άλλη οπτική, καθώς τελείται υπό την επίδραση ενός καθοριστικού παράγοντα: του χρόνου. Μα και τα άτομα, οι συγκυρίες που αποτελούν το έναυσμα για τις επιστροφές ανανεώνουν κάθε φορά το αφηγηματικό πλαίσιο. Στα διάκενα των επισκέψεων/επιστροφών, ο ήρωας βιώνει το παρόν του όπως αυτό καθορίστηκε από το παρελθόν, αλλά ταυτόχρονα προϊδεάζει το μέλλον. Δίνεται η ευκαιρία να επανέλθει σε οικεία θέματα, πάντα με τον ανοίκειό του τρόπο: η πατρική εξουσία και η σχέση με την οικογένεια, η επαφή του με τον έρωτα και η συναισθηματική/αισθησιακή εμπλοκή, ο συγχρωτισμός με τον συγγραφέα και την τέχνη. Οι νοητικές διαταραχές, η παράνοια και ο φόνος, και βέβαια ο θάνατος που κλείνει οριστικά τον κύκλο των επιστροφών που αδυνατούν να είναι αέναες όπως ο χρόνος.
Ακροτελεύτιος λίθος του Ναμποκοφικού γίγνεσθαι η Μνήμη, κι αυτή πεπερασμένη, κι αυτή υποκειμενική, άκρως γοητευτική από λογοτεχνικής πλευράς, καθότι προσφέρει την ευκαιρία σε κρυψίνοες και λοξίες δημιουργούς, όπως ο ίδιος, να μετακυλήσουν το βάρος στο διαφανές και διάτρητο από το βλέμμα του δημιουργού. Να αναδείξουν την γκρίζα προοπτική, το φευγαλέο νόημα, τη γοητεία του παράδρομου που ποτέ δεν οδηγεί στον ευκταίο και προκαθορισμένο προορισμό, αλλά κινείται δαιδαλωδώς, ουδέποτε όμως άσκοπα. Η γεωγραφία που υπηρετεί ο συγγραφέας δεν είναι η γνωστή, η οριοθετημένη με σύνορα, αλλά η προσωπική του, με ηπείρους άγνωστες (τουλάχιστον προτού ανοίξουμε το βιβλίο του) ��αι κατοίκους που αγνοούν τον τρόπο συμπεριφοράς των πραγματικών τους προτύπων, σε βαθμό αυτάρεσκο και συχνά περιφρονητικό.
Αν και ο συγγραφέας επανέρχεται τακτικά στα διαφανή αντικείμενα ("μέσα από τα οποία το παρελθόν ακτινοβολεί"), καθιστά δυσχερή την αποκρυπτογράφηση της διαφάνειάς τους για τον αναγνώστη. Το…αδιαφανές πέπλο σκεπάζει τα πάντα, αφήνοντας μόνο ελάχιστες ρωγμές από τις οποίες περνά το θαμπό φως της κατανόησης. Το νοητικό αυτό παιχνίδι, στο οποίο ο συγγραφέας εμπλέκει τον αναγνώστη συνεχίζεται ως το τέλος του ολιγοσέλιδου αυτού βιβλίου.
Αντικείμενα, άνθρωποι ομού φωτίζονται ανεπαρκώς, ολισθαίνουν συχνότερα στις σκιές, το παρελθόν τους μόνο ακτινοβολεί στιγμιαία και δεν είναι καθόλου τυχαίο πως την ύστατη στιγμή, στο καταληκτικό κεφάλαιο, παραδίδονται στις φλόγες. Η φωτιά κατατρώει ανθρώπους και αντικείμενα και ό,τι μέχρι τούδε παρέμενε αδιαφανές αναλώνεται και χάνεται διαπαντός από τον χώρο και τον χρόνο. Ο συγγραφέας αποχωρεί, η αυλαία πέφτει…
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2020/10/...
Εφόσον αναζητούμε ένα στοιχείο που θα προσδώσει στο βιβλίο του Ναμπόκοφ κάποια αρχική κατανόηση "περί τίνος πρόκειται", έχουμε στη διάθεσή μας τον τίτλο του έργου (και τον ορισμό από Wikipedia). Εις μάτην βεβαίως, δεδομένου πως οι απαντήσεις στους Ναμποκοφ-ικούς γρίφους ποτέ δεν είναι τόσο προφανείς, και ο διάβολος πάντα κρύβεται στις λεπτομέρειες. Τίποτα δεν χαρίζεται στον αναγνώστη που προσεγγίζει το έργο του Δασκάλου με μειωμένες προσδοκίες, έτοιμα σχήματα κατανόησης και αντίληψης περί της αναγνωστικής διαδρομής.
Το εναρκτήριο κεφάλαιο προκάλεσε στον γράφοντα έκρηξη γέλωτα, καθώς τορπιλίζει άμεσα κάθε προσπάθεια άμεσης προσέγγισης και προσέλκυσης. Η πλειονότητα των συγγραφέων -όχι αποκλειστικά των ευπώλητων- ανοίγουν την παρτίδα επιθετικά, ρίχνουν στη μάχη το βαρύ πυροβολικό τους, επιχειρώντας να παρασύρουν άμεσα το βιαστικό και ασθμαίνον κοινό στο πόνημά τους. Πρόκειται για έναν αγώνα δρόμου, προκειμένου να κερδίσουν την ελλιπή προσοχή του σύγχρονου αναγνώστη που αναμένει την απόλαυση ήδη από το πρώτο κεφάλαιο, τις πρώτες σελίδες του βιβλίου που αγόρασε. Σε διαφορετική περίπτωση, θα στραφεί στην παρακείμενη εκθαμβωτική οθόνη που το κάλεσμά της απαρνήθηκε προς ώρας. Και για να μην τον αδικώ (με γενικεύσεις πρόδηλες δικών μου εμμονών), ο εκάστοτε αναγνώστης είναι τελικά πιο πρόθυμος να επιλέξει κάποιο άλλο βιβλίο που ε��ναι έτοιμο να του παραδώσει τα κάλλη του από τις εναρκτήριες ήδη παραγράφους.
Αντ' αυτού, ο Ναμπόκοφ τραβάει αδίστακτα το χαλί κάτω από τα πόδια: Αναφέρεται σε κάποιον Άνθρωπο (καταλαβαίνουμε στη συνέχεια πως πρόκειται για τον βασικό ήρωα, ονόματι Πέρσον) και εν συνεχεία μιλάει για τον χρόνο (το παρελθόν και το μέλλον), αλλά και τα διάφανα αντικείμενα – "εκείνα στα οποία μπορούμε να επικεντρωθούμε, ώστε να διεισδύσουμε άθελά μας στην ιστορία του αντικειμένου… Διαφανή αντικείμενα μέσα από τα οποία το παρελθό�� ακτινοβολεί!". Μας υπόσχεται πως επ' αυτών θα υπάρξει συνέχεια εντός ολίγου, υπόσχεση που αθετεί -εν μέρει- βεβαίως.
Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι μικρό σε μέγεθος (μόλις 150 σελίδες), ε��τούτοις αυτό δεν διευκολύνει στο ελάχιστο την ανάγνωσή του (ίσως είναι το πιο στριφνό έργο του). Όχι πως υπάρχει κάτι ανυπέρβλητο από πλευράς ύφους - η όποια δυσκολία του Ναμπόκοφ έγκειται στον τρόπο με τον οποίο αποφεύγει το προφανές και εστιάζει στο αφανές, στα μετεικάσματα, στα είδωλα. Στις κορυφαίες του στιγμές δείχνει σαν να βιάζεται να ξεμπερδέψει με την πλοκή, με το "τι έγινε τελικά;", ώστε να επανέλθει στο πώς. Αν υπάρχει κάποια κατάληξη, ο συγγραφέας συνήθως την επισημαίνει εξαρχής, προκειμένου να επιδοθεί απερίσπαστος στην πορεία που οδηγεί εκεί.
Σπανίως θα βρει ο αναγνώστης πρωταγωνιστές και δευτεραγωνιστές άμεσα συμπαθείς και ταυτίσιμους (η μόνη εξαίρεση που θυμάμαι είναι ο ήρωας της "Δόξας") στα έργα του Ναμπόκοφ. Στο εν λόγω βιβλίο, καίτοι το έχουμε ήδη συμπεράνει από τα γραφόμενα, ο συγγραφέας σε κάποιο σημείο τονίζει πως ο ήρωάς μας δεν είναι ένας συμπαθής και, εδώ που τα λέμε, όχι ιδιαίτερα καλός άνθρωπος. Βεβαίως το αυτό ισχύει και για τους συνοδευτικούς χαρακτήρες (ιδίως για τη σύζυγο του, η οποία είναι εξαρχής αντιπαθής).
Ο Ναμπόκοφ πριονίζει ένα επιπλέον κλαδί κάτω από τα πόδια του ανώριμου (σύμφωνα με τα λεγόμενά του) αναγνώστη που επιζητά την ταύτιση με τον ήρωα και εν συνεχεία με την πλοκή. Πάγια τακτική του συγγραφέα που ενδιαφέρεται αποκλειστικά για την ταύτιση του αναγνώστη με τον ίδιο, με το όραμά του, με τον προσωπικό του τρόπο θέασης και καταγραφής της μυθιστορηματικής -και ποτέ της ρεαλιστικής- πραγματικότητας.
Όπως έχει σωστά ειπωθεί, κάθε μεγάλος καλλιτέχνης δημιουργεί -και επανέρχεται- στο ίδιο πάντα έργο. Εν μέρει αληθές το απόφθεγμα, κρύβει δύο σημεία ενδιαφέροντος: Πρώτον, οι εμμονές οφείλουν να είναι σταθερές και να αρδεύουν… εμμονικά το έργο του. Δεύτερον, ανεξαρτήτως της όποιας θεματολογίας του, ο συγκολλητικός ιστός, το ιδιαίτερο αφηγηματικό του ύφος, καθιστά ευχάριστα προβλέψιμη την επαφή μαζί του (όσο κι αν επιχειρεί να απομακρυνθεί από αυτό). Ο Ναμπόκοφ ως μεγάλος λογοτέχνης δεν αρνείται τις όποιες εμμονές του – αρκείται σε αυτές και τις επαναφέρει τακτικά στα έργα του προς τέρψιν ημών των θαυμαστών του.
Στα "Διαφανή αντικείμενα" ο ήρωας του επιστρέφει. Και επιστρέφει ξανά και ξανά στη χώρα (Ελβετία) που τον καθόρισε ως νέο. Κάθε επιστροφή όμως είναι και μια άλλη οπτική, καθώς τελείται υπό την επίδραση ενός καθοριστικού παράγοντα: του χρόνου. Μα και τα άτομα, οι συγκυρίες που αποτελούν το έναυσμα για τις επιστροφές ανανεώνουν κάθε φορά το αφηγηματικό πλαίσιο. Στα διάκενα των επισκέψεων/επιστροφών, ο ήρωας βιώνει το παρόν του όπως αυτό καθορίστηκε από το παρελθόν, αλλά ταυτόχρονα προϊδεάζει το μέλλον. Δίνεται η ευκαιρία να επανέλθει σε οικεία θέματα, πάντα με τον ανοίκειό του τρόπο: η πατρική εξουσία και η σχέση με την οικογένεια, η επαφή του με τον έρωτα και η συναισθηματική/αισθησιακή εμπλοκή, ο συγχρωτισμός με τον συγγραφέα και την τέχνη. Οι νοητικές διαταραχές, η παράνοια και ο φόνος, και βέβαια ο θάνατος που κλείνει οριστικά τον κύκλο των επιστροφών που αδυνατούν να είναι αέναες όπως ο χρόνος.
Ακροτελεύτιος λίθος του Ναμποκοφικού γίγνεσθαι η Μνήμη, κι αυτή πεπερασμένη, κι αυτή υποκειμενική, άκρως γοητευτική από λογοτεχνικής πλευράς, καθότι προσφέρει την ευκαιρία σε κρυψίνοες και λοξίες δημιουργούς, όπως ο ίδιος, να μετακυλήσουν το βάρος στο διαφανές και διάτρητο από το βλέμμα του δημιουργού. Να αναδείξουν την γκρίζα προοπτική, το φευγαλέο νόημα, τη γοητεία του παράδρομου που ποτέ δεν οδηγεί στον ευκταίο και προκαθορισμένο προορισμό, αλλά κινείται δαιδαλωδώς, ουδέποτε όμως άσκοπα. Η γεωγραφία που υπηρετεί ο συγγραφέας δεν είναι η γνωστή, η οριοθετημένη με σύνορα, αλλά η προσωπική του, με ηπείρους άγνωστες (τουλάχιστον προτού ανοίξουμε το βιβλίο του) ��αι κατοίκους που αγνοούν τον τρόπο συμπεριφοράς των πραγματικών τους προτύπων, σε βαθμό αυτάρεσκο και συχνά περιφρονητικό.
Αν και ο συγγραφέας επανέρχεται τακτικά στα διαφανή αντικείμενα ("μέσα από τα οποία το παρελθόν ακτινοβολεί"), καθιστά δυσχερή την αποκρυπτογράφηση της διαφάνειάς τους για τον αναγνώστη. Το…αδιαφανές πέπλο σκεπάζει τα πάντα, αφήνοντας μόνο ελάχιστες ρωγμές από τις οποίες περνά το θαμπό φως της κατανόησης. Το νοητικό αυτό παιχνίδι, στο οποίο ο συγγραφέας εμπλέκει τον αναγνώστη συνεχίζεται ως το τέλος του ολιγοσέλιδου αυτού βιβλίου.
Αντικείμενα, άνθρωποι ομού φωτίζονται ανεπαρκώς, ολισθαίνουν συχνότερα στις σκιές, το παρελθόν τους μόνο ακτινοβολεί στιγμιαία και δεν είναι καθόλου τυχαίο πως την ύστατη στιγμή, στο καταληκτικό κεφάλαιο, παραδίδονται στις φλόγες. Η φωτιά κατατρώει ανθρώπους και αντικείμενα και ό,τι μέχρι τούδε παρέμενε αδιαφανές αναλώνεται και χάνεται διαπαντός από τον χώρο και τον χρόνο. Ο συγγραφέας αποχωρεί, η αυλαία πέφτει…
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2020/10/...
February 10, 2017
This one is oh so clever without much soul. A delicious beginning:
When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level at the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines.
…A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film. Otherwise the experienced miracle worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish.
Our cad of a hero, Hugh Person, is a person sensitive to this sort of reality twist. Use of a pencil will lead his mind to the specific forest wood it came from, the mind and means of forming the lead. A name of something, the etymology and resonance with other meanings of the word. It can be a torment if the hotel room where he stays with a lover opens the mind to a ghost memory of someone murdered or the memory of other lovers she had there. It’s kind admirable to see his mind at work this way, like he had a special handle on reality, but he is so mercenary and disdainful of everyone he encounters, you feel he deserves it when his mental talents lead him to anguished trouble.
He lives in New York, having worked his way up undeservedly to an assistant editor of a prestigious publisher. As the tale unfurls we experience four trips by him to Switzerland, ski resort town on a lake. Each visit is folded into the other in a confused but interlocking sequence like nested Russian dolls, with events of later trips slipping you back to earlier visits, or events of earlier visits presaging those of later visits. I won’t spoil any fun you might have with that by disclosing details.
There is much of his signature mastery of wordplay to savor. Somehow you begin to identify with his nasty outlook on things. If you are bored with writers who mush your head with the charm of rural surroundings and vistas, it can be refreshing when adjectives of a jaundiced view leap from the page to your mind. In one early paragraph of arrival I see the words “featureless station”, a hotel that was “drab and cheap” now replaced by a “steely edifice”, retiring to a “common grave of sleep”, a memory of being there with his father who had “aged unappetizingly” The “old duffer wrestled with the Venetian blinds”, “inept gropings” which Hugh “watched in disgusted silence.” The power of such ways of seeing world makes you happy when Hugh is at last free of his father and his talent at negativity is put to good use editing the work of pompous and arrogant authors. And you will likely be glad when on a later trip to Switzerland spur some productivity out of an egotistical author he falls in lust for a barely adult young woman on the train and works up some real ambition to conquer her heart.
What he has to win her makes for quite an absurd quest, and by the time he works past all the shameful things she puts him through to get her, he is hopelessly in love. Which makes him helpless in the face of all the just deserts that comes his way with the marriage from hell. His mental capacity to slip below the surface reality has him imagine the dozens of lovers she has on her skip trips without him (while beneath the surface of the book that author’s avatar slips in to tell you it was only a dozen). But his real problems arise from where he slips to in the dreams under the surface of his sleep. The things he does as a somnambulist brings on more just deserts, as well as more triumphs over them in time. That other people are more disgusting than Hugh makes you want to bet on him.
I probably only gathered in a tiny fraction of the cases of the transparent things theme. The puffed up author in Switzerland got famous from a book called “Three Tenses”, which features an outing with a past mistress, his present wife, and a future mistress. I suspect that relates to the complex intersections Hugh has with that author’s life and his various women. Too clever for me. But it’s a short read, and some of the connections are likely to percolate up later. A good antidote to predictable or unpredictable tales with simple heroes and villains, ones that end with a predictable emotional catharsis. Not much soul as I noted at the start. Yet there is that relief of rediscovering your own heart beneath your skin when you return to yourself when its over.
When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level at the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines.
…A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film. Otherwise the experienced miracle worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish.
Our cad of a hero, Hugh Person, is a person sensitive to this sort of reality twist. Use of a pencil will lead his mind to the specific forest wood it came from, the mind and means of forming the lead. A name of something, the etymology and resonance with other meanings of the word. It can be a torment if the hotel room where he stays with a lover opens the mind to a ghost memory of someone murdered or the memory of other lovers she had there. It’s kind admirable to see his mind at work this way, like he had a special handle on reality, but he is so mercenary and disdainful of everyone he encounters, you feel he deserves it when his mental talents lead him to anguished trouble.
He lives in New York, having worked his way up undeservedly to an assistant editor of a prestigious publisher. As the tale unfurls we experience four trips by him to Switzerland, ski resort town on a lake. Each visit is folded into the other in a confused but interlocking sequence like nested Russian dolls, with events of later trips slipping you back to earlier visits, or events of earlier visits presaging those of later visits. I won’t spoil any fun you might have with that by disclosing details.
There is much of his signature mastery of wordplay to savor. Somehow you begin to identify with his nasty outlook on things. If you are bored with writers who mush your head with the charm of rural surroundings and vistas, it can be refreshing when adjectives of a jaundiced view leap from the page to your mind. In one early paragraph of arrival I see the words “featureless station”, a hotel that was “drab and cheap” now replaced by a “steely edifice”, retiring to a “common grave of sleep”, a memory of being there with his father who had “aged unappetizingly” The “old duffer wrestled with the Venetian blinds”, “inept gropings” which Hugh “watched in disgusted silence.” The power of such ways of seeing world makes you happy when Hugh is at last free of his father and his talent at negativity is put to good use editing the work of pompous and arrogant authors. And you will likely be glad when on a later trip to Switzerland spur some productivity out of an egotistical author he falls in lust for a barely adult young woman on the train and works up some real ambition to conquer her heart.
What he has to win her makes for quite an absurd quest, and by the time he works past all the shameful things she puts him through to get her, he is hopelessly in love. Which makes him helpless in the face of all the just deserts that comes his way with the marriage from hell. His mental capacity to slip below the surface reality has him imagine the dozens of lovers she has on her skip trips without him (while beneath the surface of the book that author’s avatar slips in to tell you it was only a dozen). But his real problems arise from where he slips to in the dreams under the surface of his sleep. The things he does as a somnambulist brings on more just deserts, as well as more triumphs over them in time. That other people are more disgusting than Hugh makes you want to bet on him.
I probably only gathered in a tiny fraction of the cases of the transparent things theme. The puffed up author in Switzerland got famous from a book called “Three Tenses”, which features an outing with a past mistress, his present wife, and a future mistress. I suspect that relates to the complex intersections Hugh has with that author’s life and his various women. Too clever for me. But it’s a short read, and some of the connections are likely to percolate up later. A good antidote to predictable or unpredictable tales with simple heroes and villains, ones that end with a predictable emotional catharsis. Not much soul as I noted at the start. Yet there is that relief of rediscovering your own heart beneath your skin when you return to yourself when its over.
July 10, 2018
Η στιγμή που κάποιος πεθαίνει μερικές φορές έχει μια πτυχή τραγική και μία κωμική. Τραγική όταν βλέπεις τα πράγματα από πολύ κοντά, όταν είσαι ο κοντινός συγγενής και κωμική όταν τα βλέπεις μακροσκοπικά, σαν ένας ξένος που θα μπορούσε να δει τη στιγμή πριν και τη στιγμή μετά, αναλύοντας τις κινήσεις και όχι τις τελευταίες σκέψεις που ούτως ή άλλως απέχουμε πολύ για να μπορούμε να τις καταλάβουμε πριν φτάσουμε και εμείς στην ύστατη στιγμή. Αυτή ήταν η σκέψη μου με ελαφρό σοκ απ’ τη συνειδητοποίηση της όταν διάβασα στα πρώτα κεφάλαια πως και πότε πέθανε ο πατέρας του Χιού, κάτω από ποιες συνθήκες και μέσα στο σύνολο μια ορισμένης εικόνας. Αμέσως, δε μπόρεσα να εμποδίσω τη σκέψη μου να δει με άλλα μάτια και όχι τα κοντινά ενός συγγενή, αλλά απαλλαγμένα απ’ τον πόνο και με τη χρονική απόσταση, το θάνατο ενός δικού μου ανθρώπου. Να συλλάβω τη στιγμή αποστασιοποιημένα κατά κάποιο τρόπο, μην επιτρέποντας στα συναισθήματα να αγγίξουν τη στιγμή, σα μια εικόνα ξέχωρη.
Ένα κουτί σπίρτα, μία τηλεόραση, εκείνη η γυναίκα, αυτός ο άντρας είναι όλα αντικείμενα. Έξω από μία ιστορία, ένα πεπερασμένο χρόνο, την αλληλουχία και τη σύνδεση μαζί μας έχουν συγκεκριμένο σχήμα και είναι εντελώς διαφανή. Και κάθε στιγμή είναι μια άλλη στιγμή που δίνει νέα χρώματα, διαστάσεις, τόνους, συναισθήματα. Τίποτα φυσικά δεν είναι το ίδιο, το αμέσως επόμενο δευτερόλεπτο απ’ όταν συντελέστηκαν ορισμένες συνθήκες. Ακόμα και η ζωή είναι αντικείμενο. Ναι η πορεία που έχεις κάνει είναι ένα αντικείμενο, το οποίο και έχεις ζήσει και έχεις παρακολουθήσει. Ως πρωταγωνιστής του έργου σου οφείλεις να ζήσεις, να συμμετάσχεις, να μην καταλάβεις τη γελοιότητα παρά μ��νες κάποιες τραγικές, σκοτεινές πτυχές. Μα και την ίδια στιγμή οφείλεις να γίνεσαι θεατής και να διασκεδάζεις όπως μόνο εσύ μπορείς με τις στιγμές που πέρασαν. Και τότε πια από μια τρίτη έδρα να παρατηρείς και να καταλαβαίνεις, να κατανοείς και να διορθώνεις, να προχωράς ενώ πια ξέρεις και το κουτί αυτό με τα σπίρτα, να είναι ένα κουτί με σπίρτα, ως τη στιγμή που θα αποφασίσεις να γίνει κάτι άλλο, δεμένο με ό,τι υπήρξε και αξεδιάλυτο απ’ τις προσδοκίες σου ( εν γνώσει ), αλλά που παραμένει πάντα διάφανο για να το κάνει το άγγιγμα σου ό,τι πρόκειται να γίνει. Κι όλες αυτές οι φάσεις δεν έχουν κανένα νόημα αν γίνονται μόνο για ό,τι παρήλθε και όχι για ό,τι συμβαίνει. Μόνο αυτή η ταυτόχρονη ύπαρξη των φάσεων είναι ικανή να μας σώσει απ’ τον ξεπεσμό των λάθος γεγονότων και των κακών επιλογών που να μπορούμε να βρούμε μια έξοδο κι όχι να μεμψιμοιρούμε γι’ αυτά που νίκησε ο χρόνος γιατί εμείς ήμασταν απόντες.
Δηλητηριώδες χιούμορ, μη ευθύγραμμη χρονικά γραφή, καθαρός ρεαλισμός και την ίδια στιγμή ένα χαιρέτισμα στους 49 στο σφυρί. Απαιτητικό, άβολο, δε χαρίζει κάστανα σε καμιά μόνο κατ’ όνομα μετανεωτερικότητα. Πολύ δύσκολο βιβλίο, παρά το μικρό μέγεθος του, αρνείται στον αναγνώστη να νιώσει αν πρώτα δε σκεφτεί τι διαβάζει και δεν ανακαλέσει τα δικά του αντικείμενα, εξετάζοντας τα υπό την ανερμήνευτη ως αυτή τη στιγμή σχηματική και αχρωμάτιστη μορφή τους. Και μέσα σε όλα αυτά, και, μετά από όλα αυτά οι διαφανείς λέξεις που συγκροτούν νοήματα, μεστά στον αλληλένδετο ορισμό τους και παρά τα σαφή περιγράμματα άυλα στα μέσα τους όταν μένουν στον αέρα, ασύνδετα απ’ τον άνθρωπο, τη συνθήκη, το χρόνο, τις ακολουθίες.
Η μνήμη μας δεν είναι παρά ένα παίξιμο των ματιών σαν το πάτημα του κοντρόλ της τηλεόρασης για να δούμε ένα συγκεκριμένο στιγμιότυπο. Μπορεί σε αυτό να συμμετέχει το ίδιο μονοπάτι που βρίσκεται κάτω απ’ το παράθυρο, ο ίδιος βόμβος από ένα ψυγείο, ένας παρόμοιος ήλιος, μια μορφή διαθλασμένη και μεταφερμένη στο τώρα και το τότε. Ένα παίξιμο και το τώρα πέφτει πάνω στο τότε. Μιλάει η ανάμνηση μέσα από τα ίδια περιγράμματα που υπάρχουν κάθε στιγμή, κρυστάλλινη με τη βεβαιότητα πως υπήρξε, αλλά περνάει μέσα από κάθε έμψυχο και άψυχο αντικείμενο που με τον καιρό στρογγυλοποιήθηκε κάθε άκρη του. Τώρα είναι ο χρόνος που το παρόν μπορεί να γλυκάνει αυτά τα αντικείμενα, προσδίδοντας τους την αλήθεια που μόνο η γνώση κι η απόσταση φέρνουν κι αυτό δεν είναι πάντα σίγουρο. Μόνο όταν πια γελάς και κλαις μ’ αυτό που βλέπεις, ξέρεις. Τίποτα δεν είναι ίδιο και τίποτα δεν είναι διαφορετικό, αυτό το ξέρεις. Έζησες κάποιο στιγμιότυπο που διαπέρασε η ουσία του κάθε λέξη, άτομο, κάθισμα, τραπέζι, πιάνο, βρύση, ήλιο, θέατρο, μήλο, τρένο, χωρίς να τα καθαγιάσει. Πάντοτε είναι αυτά και πάντοτε είναι άλλα. Το παρόν, μόνο το παρόν είναι επιλογή, οτιδήποτε άλλο οδηγεί στο θάνατο.
Ένα κουτί σπίρτα, μία τηλεόραση, εκείνη η γυναίκα, αυτός ο άντρας είναι όλα αντικείμενα. Έξω από μία ιστορία, ένα πεπερασμένο χρόνο, την αλληλουχία και τη σύνδεση μαζί μας έχουν συγκεκριμένο σχήμα και είναι εντελώς διαφανή. Και κάθε στιγμή είναι μια άλλη στιγμή που δίνει νέα χρώματα, διαστάσεις, τόνους, συναισθήματα. Τίποτα φυσικά δεν είναι το ίδιο, το αμέσως επόμενο δευτερόλεπτο απ’ όταν συντελέστηκαν ορισμένες συνθήκες. Ακόμα και η ζωή είναι αντικείμενο. Ναι η πορεία που έχεις κάνει είναι ένα αντικείμενο, το οποίο και έχεις ζήσει και έχεις παρακολουθήσει. Ως πρωταγωνιστής του έργου σου οφείλεις να ζήσεις, να συμμετάσχεις, να μην καταλάβεις τη γελοιότητα παρά μ��νες κάποιες τραγικές, σκοτεινές πτυχές. Μα και την ίδια στιγμή οφείλεις να γίνεσαι θεατής και να διασκεδάζεις όπως μόνο εσύ μπορείς με τις στιγμές που πέρασαν. Και τότε πια από μια τρίτη έδρα να παρατηρείς και να καταλαβαίνεις, να κατανοείς και να διορθώνεις, να προχωράς ενώ πια ξέρεις και το κουτί αυτό με τα σπίρτα, να είναι ένα κουτί με σπίρτα, ως τη στιγμή που θα αποφασίσεις να γίνει κάτι άλλο, δεμένο με ό,τι υπήρξε και αξεδιάλυτο απ’ τις προσδοκίες σου ( εν γνώσει ), αλλά που παραμένει πάντα διάφανο για να το κάνει το άγγιγμα σου ό,τι πρόκειται να γίνει. Κι όλες αυτές οι φάσεις δεν έχουν κανένα νόημα αν γίνονται μόνο για ό,τι παρήλθε και όχι για ό,τι συμβαίνει. Μόνο αυτή η ταυτόχρονη ύπαρξη των φάσεων είναι ικανή να μας σώσει απ’ τον ξεπεσμό των λάθος γεγονότων και των κακών επιλογών που να μπορούμε να βρούμε μια έξοδο κι όχι να μεμψιμοιρούμε γι’ αυτά που νίκησε ο χρόνος γιατί εμείς ήμασταν απόντες.
Δηλητηριώδες χιούμορ, μη ευθύγραμμη χρονικά γραφή, καθαρός ρεαλισμός και την ίδια στιγμή ένα χαιρέτισμα στους 49 στο σφυρί. Απαιτητικό, άβολο, δε χαρίζει κάστανα σε καμιά μόνο κατ’ όνομα μετανεωτερικότητα. Πολύ δύσκολο βιβλίο, παρά το μικρό μέγεθος του, αρνείται στον αναγνώστη να νιώσει αν πρώτα δε σκεφτεί τι διαβάζει και δεν ανακαλέσει τα δικά του αντικείμενα, εξετάζοντας τα υπό την ανερμήνευτη ως αυτή τη στιγμή σχηματική και αχρωμάτιστη μορφή τους. Και μέσα σε όλα αυτά, και, μετά από όλα αυτά οι διαφανείς λέξεις που συγκροτούν νοήματα, μεστά στον αλληλένδετο ορισμό τους και παρά τα σαφή περιγράμματα άυλα στα μέσα τους όταν μένουν στον αέρα, ασύνδετα απ’ τον άνθρωπο, τη συνθήκη, το χρόνο, τις ακολουθίες.
Η μνήμη μας δεν είναι παρά ένα παίξιμο των ματιών σαν το πάτημα του κοντρόλ της τηλεόρασης για να δούμε ένα συγκεκριμένο στιγμιότυπο. Μπορεί σε αυτό να συμμετέχει το ίδιο μονοπάτι που βρίσκεται κάτω απ’ το παράθυρο, ο ίδιος βόμβος από ένα ψυγείο, ένας παρόμοιος ήλιος, μια μορφή διαθλασμένη και μεταφερμένη στο τώρα και το τότε. Ένα παίξιμο και το τώρα πέφτει πάνω στο τότε. Μιλάει η ανάμνηση μέσα από τα ίδια περιγράμματα που υπάρχουν κάθε στιγμή, κρυστάλλινη με τη βεβαιότητα πως υπήρξε, αλλά περνάει μέσα από κάθε έμψυχο και άψυχο αντικείμενο που με τον καιρό στρογγυλοποιήθηκε κάθε άκρη του. Τώρα είναι ο χρόνος που το παρόν μπορεί να γλυκάνει αυτά τα αντικείμενα, προσδίδοντας τους την αλήθεια που μόνο η γνώση κι η απόσταση φέρνουν κι αυτό δεν είναι πάντα σίγουρο. Μόνο όταν πια γελάς και κλαις μ’ αυτό που βλέπεις, ξέρεις. Τίποτα δεν είναι ίδιο και τίποτα δεν είναι διαφορετικό, αυτό το ξέρεις. Έζησες κάποιο στιγμιότυπο που διαπέρασε η ουσία του κάθε λέξη, άτομο, κάθισμα, τραπέζι, πιάνο, βρύση, ήλιο, θέατρο, μήλο, τρένο, χωρίς να τα καθαγιάσει. Πάντοτε είναι αυτά και πάντοτε είναι άλλα. Το παρόν, μόνο το παρόν είναι επιλογή, οτιδήποτε άλλο οδηγεί στο θάνατο.
April 10, 2017
There is little here of enduring substance, apart from the spectacle of Nabokov himself. This slender volume contains all the Nabokovian elements: the unconventional style of narration (check!); the wonderfully pretentious prose, with smatterings of French and Russian (and why the hell not throw in a little German and Italian this time - check!); the nymphet and the older man (check!); the Russian émigré (check!); there's even tangential reference made to butterflies and chess (check! check!). It's safe to say that for his 17th and penultimate novel, Nabokov had no intention of reinventing himself. He permeates the text.
The theme here is recurrence and memory, delivered by means of repeating motifs and the Nabokovian absurd (death by sartorial misbehaviour; murder by hypnopompic asphyxiation; a bizarre fetishisation of dispassionate sex). It's a brief but densely layered work, whose nature is somewhat occluded until the final chapters.
Perhaps the phrasing of my opening sentence is a little unfair: there is certainly substance here, but it is subtle and elusive and not all that enduring. Transparent Things is a lovely experience, but it is one I think will be easily (and somewhat ironically) forgotten.
The theme here is recurrence and memory, delivered by means of repeating motifs and the Nabokovian absurd (death by sartorial misbehaviour; murder by hypnopompic asphyxiation; a bizarre fetishisation of dispassionate sex). It's a brief but densely layered work, whose nature is somewhat occluded until the final chapters.
Perhaps the phrasing of my opening sentence is a little unfair: there is certainly substance here, but it is subtle and elusive and not all that enduring. Transparent Things is a lovely experience, but it is one I think will be easily (and somewhat ironically) forgotten.
December 29, 2020
Transparências de Vladimir Nobokov é um romance, publicado em 1972.
Começa assim:
Eis a pessoa que eu quero. Olá pessoa! Não me ouve.
…
Olá, pessoa! Que se passa? Não me empurres. Não o estou a incomodar. Oh, está bem. Olá, pessoa…
Quando nos concentramos num objeto material, seja qual for a situação, o próprio ato da atenção pode levar-nos a mergulhar involuntariamente na história desse objeto. Os principiantes devem aprender a desnatar a matéria se quiserem que a matéria permaneça ao nível exato do momento. Transparências, através dos quais o passado resplandece! (pag. 7)
O nome do personagem Hugh (You/tu), Peterson/¬Person (Pessoa) é uma metáfora das muitas que Nobokov imprime nos seus textos. Simboliza o personagem que vive dentro do personagem principal. Vou tentar explicar-me:
Hugh é um editor literário sonâmbulo, que durante o sono vive intensamente os seus sonhos, os bons e os maus. Na verdade, são dois seres que coabitam no mesmo homem, Hugh e o outro, um Hugh transparente, que mora dentro de si mesmo, materializa as suas estórias. Os dois se confundem e se misturam com: o passado e o presente, a realidade e o sonho, o amor e o ódio, a frieza e a sensualidade, e o crime.
Neste romance Nabokov dá-nos a conhecer a Suíça, mais precisamente Montreux. O nosso personagem desloca-se por quatro vezes a este país. A primeira na companhia de seu pai, que ali acaba por falecer, a segunda e terceira para se encontrar com um escritor excêntrico, que tal como Humbert de Lolita também aprecia garotinhas.
Na terceira viagem conhece uma jovem loira, com quem casa e regressa aos EUA. Ela namoradeira e ele ciumento. Numa das noites de sonambulismo a esposa morre, ele é preso e posteriormente enviado para um hospício.
Passados oito anos da morte da mulher faz a sua última viagem à Suíça, e é aqui que se desenrola toda a novela. Vivenciar o passado, nos mesmos hotéis, caminhadas, sítios, numa tentativa de dar significado à própria vida, restabelecer um ponto no seu pensamento e prender-se nele permanentemente. Criar uma transparência entre o passado e o presente junto da sua amada mulher, no sítio onde outrora se sentira tão feliz.
Começa assim:
Eis a pessoa que eu quero. Olá pessoa! Não me ouve.
…
Olá, pessoa! Que se passa? Não me empurres. Não o estou a incomodar. Oh, está bem. Olá, pessoa…
Quando nos concentramos num objeto material, seja qual for a situação, o próprio ato da atenção pode levar-nos a mergulhar involuntariamente na história desse objeto. Os principiantes devem aprender a desnatar a matéria se quiserem que a matéria permaneça ao nível exato do momento. Transparências, através dos quais o passado resplandece! (pag. 7)
O nome do personagem Hugh (You/tu), Peterson/¬Person (Pessoa) é uma metáfora das muitas que Nobokov imprime nos seus textos. Simboliza o personagem que vive dentro do personagem principal. Vou tentar explicar-me:
Hugh é um editor literário sonâmbulo, que durante o sono vive intensamente os seus sonhos, os bons e os maus. Na verdade, são dois seres que coabitam no mesmo homem, Hugh e o outro, um Hugh transparente, que mora dentro de si mesmo, materializa as suas estórias. Os dois se confundem e se misturam com: o passado e o presente, a realidade e o sonho, o amor e o ódio, a frieza e a sensualidade, e o crime.
Neste romance Nabokov dá-nos a conhecer a Suíça, mais precisamente Montreux. O nosso personagem desloca-se por quatro vezes a este país. A primeira na companhia de seu pai, que ali acaba por falecer, a segunda e terceira para se encontrar com um escritor excêntrico, que tal como Humbert de Lolita também aprecia garotinhas.
Na terceira viagem conhece uma jovem loira, com quem casa e regressa aos EUA. Ela namoradeira e ele ciumento. Numa das noites de sonambulismo a esposa morre, ele é preso e posteriormente enviado para um hospício.
Passados oito anos da morte da mulher faz a sua última viagem à Suíça, e é aqui que se desenrola toda a novela. Vivenciar o passado, nos mesmos hotéis, caminhadas, sítios, numa tentativa de dar significado à própria vida, restabelecer um ponto no seu pensamento e prender-se nele permanentemente. Criar uma transparência entre o passado e o presente junto da sua amada mulher, no sítio onde outrora se sentira tão feliz.
June 1, 2017
(Lightning Review)
Apparently I don't know how to use the second reading function. Whatever. One of my absolute favorite Nabokov's and probably his most flat-out mean-spirited. Which, naturally, translates to a whole ski lift full of fun. I'm pressed to think of another writer who excelled so greatly at getting off on doing horrible things to his characters, and here he pretty much outdoes himself on that order. Likely Top 3 Nabo for me. Oops, I'm rapping. Revelation: pretty women are generally vacuous (per VVN, not me, Sisters).
Lightning Review rating: Swiss cheese
Apparently I don't know how to use the second reading function. Whatever. One of my absolute favorite Nabokov's and probably his most flat-out mean-spirited. Which, naturally, translates to a whole ski lift full of fun. I'm pressed to think of another writer who excelled so greatly at getting off on doing horrible things to his characters, and here he pretty much outdoes himself on that order. Likely Top 3 Nabo for me. Oops, I'm rapping. Revelation: pretty women are generally vacuous (per VVN, not me, Sisters).
Lightning Review rating: Swiss cheese
September 2, 2020
This was published in 1972 and written originally in English. In 1972 Nabokov was seventy three, five years before his death.
The writing is disjointed. Simply getting a handle on what happens is difficult. To state that I understand the book’s message would be a total lie. This book by Nabokov goes over my head. I am so totally lost, I become annoyed.
Usually I enjoy Nabokov’s prose, his ability to play with words. Not even the words entice me here.
Christopher Lane narrates the audiobook. You hear every word. I cannot blame my lack of understanding on him.
****************
*Lolita 5 stars
*Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle 5 stars
*Speak, Memory 5 stars
*Mary 4 stars
*Laughter in the Dark 4 stars
*Glory 4 stars
*The Gift 3 stars
*Pale Fire 2 stars
*Pnin 1 star
*Despair 1 star
*Transparent Things 1 star
*King, Queen, Knave TBR
*The Real Life of Sebastian Knight TBR
The writing is disjointed. Simply getting a handle on what happens is difficult. To state that I understand the book’s message would be a total lie. This book by Nabokov goes over my head. I am so totally lost, I become annoyed.
Usually I enjoy Nabokov’s prose, his ability to play with words. Not even the words entice me here.
Christopher Lane narrates the audiobook. You hear every word. I cannot blame my lack of understanding on him.
****************
*Lolita 5 stars
*Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle 5 stars
*Speak, Memory 5 stars
*Mary 4 stars
*Laughter in the Dark 4 stars
*Glory 4 stars
*The Gift 3 stars
*Pale Fire 2 stars
*Pnin 1 star
*Despair 1 star
*Transparent Things 1 star
*King, Queen, Knave TBR
*The Real Life of Sebastian Knight TBR
December 25, 2015
"When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines!"
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things
Like almost every one of Nabokov's novels/novellas I've read so far, 'Transparent Things' has moments of absolute and immortal genius. I feel too there exists layers and ghosts in those pages that can only be exposed if I were to read TT three of four more times (I love Nabokov, but I'm not ready to prostrate myself that far). Anyway, Nabokov is savage in his sophisticated subtlety. Through Hugh's repeated trips to Switzerland, Nabokov guides the reader deeper and deeper (but never straight) into the distorted mind, madness and memory of Hugh Person. It is a novel that deals with the phantoms and as Nabokov himself called it, the "ooze of the past" and the "tangle of random destinies".
I loved TT, but still didn't always like it. Nabokov's own opus keeps me from giving this more than four stars. But trust me each of those four stars are transparent and brilliant.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things
Like almost every one of Nabokov's novels/novellas I've read so far, 'Transparent Things' has moments of absolute and immortal genius. I feel too there exists layers and ghosts in those pages that can only be exposed if I were to read TT three of four more times (I love Nabokov, but I'm not ready to prostrate myself that far). Anyway, Nabokov is savage in his sophisticated subtlety. Through Hugh's repeated trips to Switzerland, Nabokov guides the reader deeper and deeper (but never straight) into the distorted mind, madness and memory of Hugh Person. It is a novel that deals with the phantoms and as Nabokov himself called it, the "ooze of the past" and the "tangle of random destinies".
I loved TT, but still didn't always like it. Nabokov's own opus keeps me from giving this more than four stars. But trust me each of those four stars are transparent and brilliant.
February 10, 2021
All dreams are anagrams of diurnal reality.
This novella is an achievement, a puzzle as switchback. Don't be dissuaded by the angle of ascent, at that altitude, sure, one does pant but the vista is forever. Then there's the dialogue, a sonata for rapier. Moving on, let us ponder the interior mechanics. Exquisite as one would expect but far-more-bawdy than I honestly anticipated. Transparent Things details the unfortunate case of Hugh Person. I suppose we could deign it tragic, given his agency in the affair? Like much of Nabokov there's a sheen of the comic in all the pathos. This oil is rather discouraging.
It is a Swiss affair featuring literary estates and molestation. The family trees encompass many passports and feature fallen states and governments in exile. I did marvel at the construction and am rather sure I missed few relevant angles. Well worth anyone's time.
This novella is an achievement, a puzzle as switchback. Don't be dissuaded by the angle of ascent, at that altitude, sure, one does pant but the vista is forever. Then there's the dialogue, a sonata for rapier. Moving on, let us ponder the interior mechanics. Exquisite as one would expect but far-more-bawdy than I honestly anticipated. Transparent Things details the unfortunate case of Hugh Person. I suppose we could deign it tragic, given his agency in the affair? Like much of Nabokov there's a sheen of the comic in all the pathos. This oil is rather discouraging.
It is a Swiss affair featuring literary estates and molestation. The family trees encompass many passports and feature fallen states and governments in exile. I did marvel at the construction and am rather sure I missed few relevant angles. Well worth anyone's time.
June 25, 2019
Cose trasparenti
Quali cose ?
La realtà che ci sfugge ,impalpabile, come ali di farfalla
ali cartacee , chiazzate di nero e maculate di cremisi sbiadito, avevano margini trasparenti, di una trama sgradevolmente increspata che tremolava nel triste vento
L'ambiguità dello spazio tempo, il fugace confine tra immaginazione e memoria ,
tra il detto e il pensato, tra realtà e sogno
Una narrazione raffinata, con guizzi di ironia, a cui occorre prestare la dovuta attenzione ,per fare la conoscenza di un singolare ,allampanato , goffo personaggio, Hugh Person, tormentato dal ricordo della sua giovane moglie Armande, fredda e capricciosa, dall'insonnia , dal sonnambulismo , nell'iridescente vertigine della vita sognata
****
Quali cose ?
La realtà che ci sfugge ,impalpabile, come ali di farfalla
ali cartacee , chiazzate di nero e maculate di cremisi sbiadito, avevano margini trasparenti, di una trama sgradevolmente increspata che tremolava nel triste vento
L'ambiguità dello spazio tempo, il fugace confine tra immaginazione e memoria ,
tra il detto e il pensato, tra realtà e sogno
Una narrazione raffinata, con guizzi di ironia, a cui occorre prestare la dovuta attenzione ,per fare la conoscenza di un singolare ,allampanato , goffo personaggio, Hugh Person, tormentato dal ricordo della sua giovane moglie Armande, fredda e capricciosa, dall'insonnia , dal sonnambulismo , nell'iridescente vertigine della vita sognata
****
January 29, 2021
Tra tutta la creazione nabokoviana che ho letto fino ad oggi, "Cose trasparenti" è il libro che mi è piaciuto meno e fortunatamente è stato breve. Non ho nulla a reclamare per quanto riguarda lo stile e l'eleganza della prosa, l'originalità che contraddistingue Nabokov e la sua maestria di giocare con le parole, di anagrammarle, di renderle simmetriche, ogni suo libro è perfetto sotto quest'aspetto. Ciò che mi è venuto meno è stata l'empatia con la storia e con il personaggio perché ho sentito ingombrante l'ombra dello scrittore, come a dire "guardatemi! come sono bravo a sorprendervi e a tirare fuori il coniglio dal mio cappello!", e ciò ha messo in ombra il suo personaggio. Ho trovato questo libro più un esercizio letterario senz'altro curioso e interessante, che un romanzo che possa coinvolgere il lettore. Sicuramente lo consiglio perché Nabokov sa scrivere e su questo non c'è storia MA, a mio avviso, non raggiunge le vette di altri suoi capolavori.
May 2, 2024
"Durchsichtige Dinge" war Vladimir Nabokovs vorletzter Roman. Er ist 1972 erschienen. Sein Protagonist Hugh Person, ein Jedermann, ist ein unspektakulärer Charakter, der aber in dramatische Ereignisse verwickelt wird. Er verliebt sich in eine junge Frau, die er später im Schlaf - ausgelöst durch einen wahnhaften Traum - erwürgt. Jahre später kehrt er an den Ort der Tat, einem Schweizer Hotel, zurück und kommt bei einem Feuer um.
Der Roman besteht aus vier Reisen in die Schweiz, die Hugh Person unternimmt. Es beginnt und endet mit seiner letzten Reise. Dazwischen werden die ersten drei Reisen chronologisch geschildert. "Durchsichtige Dinge" ist ein düsteres und karges Buch. Es wimmelt nur so von Toten. Auch der Erzähler, der Schriftsteller Mr. R., der von Hugh als Verlagsmitarbeiter betreut wird, stirbt vor Ende des Romans. Er erzählt weiter aus dem Geisterreich.
Inhaltlich war der Roman äußerst verwirrend für mich. Ohne das hilfreiche Nachwort von Dieter E. Zimmer hätten sich viele meiner Fragen nicht beantwortet. Sprachlich war das Buch ein Hochgenuss. Wegen Formulierungen wie "Wehklage des alten Holzes", "die Gunst der Todeskenntnis", "verhedderte Zeiten" oder "meine elende Leber ist so schwer wie ein abgelehntes Manuskript" gefällt mir Nabokov so gut. Auch wenn mir hier die Kombination mit einer wirklich packenden Geschichte wie in "Lushins Verteidigung", "Lolita", "Pnin" oder "Das Bastardzeichen" fehlt, bin ich immer noch recht angetan. Es ist sicherlich nicht der beste Roman von Nabokov, aber gut ist er allemal. Ich lande bei einer Wertung von knappen vier Sternen.
Der Roman besteht aus vier Reisen in die Schweiz, die Hugh Person unternimmt. Es beginnt und endet mit seiner letzten Reise. Dazwischen werden die ersten drei Reisen chronologisch geschildert. "Durchsichtige Dinge" ist ein düsteres und karges Buch. Es wimmelt nur so von Toten. Auch der Erzähler, der Schriftsteller Mr. R., der von Hugh als Verlagsmitarbeiter betreut wird, stirbt vor Ende des Romans. Er erzählt weiter aus dem Geisterreich.
Inhaltlich war der Roman äußerst verwirrend für mich. Ohne das hilfreiche Nachwort von Dieter E. Zimmer hätten sich viele meiner Fragen nicht beantwortet. Sprachlich war das Buch ein Hochgenuss. Wegen Formulierungen wie "Wehklage des alten Holzes", "die Gunst der Todeskenntnis", "verhedderte Zeiten" oder "meine elende Leber ist so schwer wie ein abgelehntes Manuskript" gefällt mir Nabokov so gut. Auch wenn mir hier die Kombination mit einer wirklich packenden Geschichte wie in "Lushins Verteidigung", "Lolita", "Pnin" oder "Das Bastardzeichen" fehlt, bin ich immer noch recht angetan. Es ist sicherlich nicht der beste Roman von Nabokov, aber gut ist er allemal. Ich lande bei einer Wertung von knappen vier Sternen.
May 26, 2020
After reading Vladimir Nabokov’s (in)famous. Lolita, I chose to find another piece of the author’s writing to see if I could find a balance to offer a better, well-rounded sentiment. I turned to this novella—Nabokov’s shortest piece—in hopes that it would provide me with something to get to the core of the Nabokov writing style without needing to splice out some of the more controversial aspects of the story. This story pertains to the life of Hugh Person, a young publisher who is sent to Switzerland to interview a prominent figure. Clumsy beyond belief, Hugh does his best to complete the work assigned, but ends up falling in love with a local woman, Armande, along the way. Their love sees them return to New York, though Hugh is not one to lay down too many roots and ends up in a heap of trouble, which only leads to more headache and a final return to Europe. Back in Switzerland, Hugh must come to terms with the entirety of his life. With a deceptive title, this was anything but clear, even though the book is barely one hundred pages. Not the comparative piece I had hoped to use to flesh out my sentiments about Vladimir Nabokov.
I had high hopes that I would come out of this short piece with a stronger connection to the Nabokovian writing style and one in which the reader is not subjected to illegal thoughts and action on each page. However, rather than see paedophilia, I was subjected to random thoughts strung together in ways that made little sense to me. To call it confusing would be an understatement, though perhaps it is my problem for trying to make sense of Russian literature. Nabokov creates a dense and opaque narrative at best, using characters who seem not to go much of anywhere. At least in Lolita I could see the path and the troubles that lay ahead. Here, I am left to ponder what I, the reader, am doing on this journey. I am still hoping to find that balance (now between two pieces by the author) to see if it is me, or whether Vladimir Nabokov is an author whose writing and style is best left out of my reading bubble.
Kudos, Mr. Nabokov, for confusing me from the outset and throughout. I am thoroughly flustered now, more than I was with the incestuous book that piqued my curiosity in your work to begin this journey.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
I had high hopes that I would come out of this short piece with a stronger connection to the Nabokovian writing style and one in which the reader is not subjected to illegal thoughts and action on each page. However, rather than see paedophilia, I was subjected to random thoughts strung together in ways that made little sense to me. To call it confusing would be an understatement, though perhaps it is my problem for trying to make sense of Russian literature. Nabokov creates a dense and opaque narrative at best, using characters who seem not to go much of anywhere. At least in Lolita I could see the path and the troubles that lay ahead. Here, I am left to ponder what I, the reader, am doing on this journey. I am still hoping to find that balance (now between two pieces by the author) to see if it is me, or whether Vladimir Nabokov is an author whose writing and style is best left out of my reading bubble.
Kudos, Mr. Nabokov, for confusing me from the outset and throughout. I am thoroughly flustered now, more than I was with the incestuous book that piqued my curiosity in your work to begin this journey.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
November 10, 2019
Transparent Things is an EP remix of elements from Pale Fire, Lolita. Love, murder.
Tracks include:
1. Moby's Love Remix
2. Orbital's Murder Remix
3. NIN's Memory Mix
4. Angelo Badalementi's Dream Mix (vocals by Julee Cruise)
European version includes:
5. Hotel of Flames Dance-Dub Mix (uncredited, but an ASCAP search revealed that it was performed/recorded by Aphex Twin and Robert Fripp.)
Tracks include:
1. Moby's Love Remix
2. Orbital's Murder Remix
3. NIN's Memory Mix
4. Angelo Badalementi's Dream Mix (vocals by Julee Cruise)
European version includes:
5. Hotel of Flames Dance-Dub Mix (uncredited, but an ASCAP search revealed that it was performed/recorded by Aphex Twin and Robert Fripp.)
December 13, 2021
This was actually a little anticlimactic after Vera, which left quite an impact. But this is a good novella, a writer's novel that still manages to reach the reader and left me with a lot to think about.
We're in Switzerland and reading about clueless Americans in Switzerland. And maybe this is about clueless readers in general. VN tells us on page one: “Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment.” So, feeling all novice-like and insulted I stumbled through another 25 pages having no idea what was going on. And every couple of pages a new chapter starts and new mindset. (I had put the book down twice in those first 25 pages, and both times could not recall anything I had read and had to go back and read it again.) But there Hugh Person‘s story, his love of the unlovable Armande, begins to come out clearly. Nabokov create's an alter-ego of himself, an old cranky American author identified as Mr. R, who lives in Switzerland. Person, who works for a publisher, travels meet him a couple times. Actually the book is four trips Person takes to Switzerland, and most of the actual moment of the text happen in Switzerland.
Nabokov was a very serious writer who was never really serious, and this aspect comes out here. It's sad, tragically sad, and yet playful, and also uncomfortably thought-provoking. Not sure who I would recommend this to (although those curious about Switzerland come to mind), but I think if you get through those first 25 pages, it rewards.
-----------------------------------------------
61. Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov
published: 1972
format: 104-page paperback
acquired: September
read: Dec 7-11
time reading: 4:56, 2.8 mpp
rating: 4
locations: a small villa in Switzerland and somewhere in US (which either isn’t specified or I missed it. Presumably eastern us)
about the author: 1899 – 1977. Russia born, educated at Trinity College in Cambridge, 1922. Lived in Berlin (1922-1937), Paris, the US (1941-1961) and Montreux, Switzerland (1961-1977).
We're in Switzerland and reading about clueless Americans in Switzerland. And maybe this is about clueless readers in general. VN tells us on page one: “Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment.” So, feeling all novice-like and insulted I stumbled through another 25 pages having no idea what was going on. And every couple of pages a new chapter starts and new mindset. (I had put the book down twice in those first 25 pages, and both times could not recall anything I had read and had to go back and read it again.) But there Hugh Person‘s story, his love of the unlovable Armande, begins to come out clearly. Nabokov create's an alter-ego of himself, an old cranky American author identified as Mr. R, who lives in Switzerland. Person, who works for a publisher, travels meet him a couple times. Actually the book is four trips Person takes to Switzerland, and most of the actual moment of the text happen in Switzerland.
Nabokov was a very serious writer who was never really serious, and this aspect comes out here. It's sad, tragically sad, and yet playful, and also uncomfortably thought-provoking. Not sure who I would recommend this to (although those curious about Switzerland come to mind), but I think if you get through those first 25 pages, it rewards.
-----------------------------------------------
61. Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov
published: 1972
format: 104-page paperback
acquired: September
read: Dec 7-11
time reading: 4:56, 2.8 mpp
rating: 4
locations: a small villa in Switzerland and somewhere in US (which either isn’t specified or I missed it. Presumably eastern us)
about the author: 1899 – 1977. Russia born, educated at Trinity College in Cambridge, 1922. Lived in Berlin (1922-1937), Paris, the US (1941-1961) and Montreux, Switzerland (1961-1977).
March 18, 2021
A novel will always find it difficult to stand firm on the sole pillar of style. Nabokov's attempt to achieve this is exemplary, here not any more than elsewhere. And perhaps the fallout is intentional: All English novels by Nabokov have to feel, in varying degrees, like experiments in style rooted in a dark satire.
Plot-less prose, basically. Some smug verbiage in the garb of all all-knowing narrator. There is no story that one can promptly recite, though I find it worthy to elaborate the novel's key idea (given to us in the very first chapter) as I understand it: When our gaze fixates on a thing, any thing, we plunge into questions regarding its history, and as we plunge more and more the thing tends to become transparent. I cannot really say which meaning the word is intended to connote here, although Nabokov does seem to render it plainly as the optical one in at least two places. My way of understanding this transparency is to synonymize it with an evanescent irrelevance of form, which may mean to say that the history of the object grows in relevance while the form, and even presence, of the object becomes secondary. Understood this way, the 'transparency' is applied to the main character's memory as well. So harshly does he dwell on it to relive his past that it becomes transparent, unknowable beyond what the narrator will reveal to us.
The best part, for me, was when Nabokov illustrated his concept by describing, with a sense of duty that seemed on the verge of obsession, the history of a pencil (for two pages!!) - the pencil (or the kind of pencil) that, presumably, he used to pen this novel.
Frankly, I'm at a loss in trying to pin this novel to a comfortable evaluation. I've pored over it long, and it is beginning to gather the first refractivities of trasparency in my memory. Which is to say, it is not really a masterpiece!
Plot-less prose, basically. Some smug verbiage in the garb of all all-knowing narrator. There is no story that one can promptly recite, though I find it worthy to elaborate the novel's key idea (given to us in the very first chapter) as I understand it: When our gaze fixates on a thing, any thing, we plunge into questions regarding its history, and as we plunge more and more the thing tends to become transparent. I cannot really say which meaning the word is intended to connote here, although Nabokov does seem to render it plainly as the optical one in at least two places. My way of understanding this transparency is to synonymize it with an evanescent irrelevance of form, which may mean to say that the history of the object grows in relevance while the form, and even presence, of the object becomes secondary. Understood this way, the 'transparency' is applied to the main character's memory as well. So harshly does he dwell on it to relive his past that it becomes transparent, unknowable beyond what the narrator will reveal to us.
The best part, for me, was when Nabokov illustrated his concept by describing, with a sense of duty that seemed on the verge of obsession, the history of a pencil (for two pages!!) - the pencil (or the kind of pencil) that, presumably, he used to pen this novel.
Frankly, I'm at a loss in trying to pin this novel to a comfortable evaluation. I've pored over it long, and it is beginning to gather the first refractivities of trasparency in my memory. Which is to say, it is not really a masterpiece!
January 2, 2021
3.49
Пристрастяващо действа Набоков.
(Смешно е да давам оценка и съм наясно, че го правя без да има особен смисъл.)
Ето тук оргазмът на изкуството пробягва по целия гръбначен стълб с несравнимо по-голяма сила от тази на сексуалния екстаз или метафизичната паника.
Това много ми хареса: Прозрачни неща, през които миналото сияе!
Да, за прозрачните неща, миналото и силата на нещо непоносимо като несподелената любов, но не успя да ме задържи като цяло. Погълна се в неговата стилистика, изпуснах "прозрачните неща", а текстът беше накъсан с твърде много френски изрази.
Сюжетът при Набоков винаги ми се е струвал почти невидим. Тънък, рехав ..., единствено необходим така както клончето за птицата - да кацне някъде. Анимационният стил на писане (така си го наричам) е достатъчно щур и сюрреалистичен, за да избегне нуждата от каквато и да е оценка, и все пак давам такава, но единствено по смисъла на това как се усещам в края.
Ако бях стихотворец (но аз съм само стилист)
Ето, това е човекът, който ми трябва. Здравей, човек! Не ме чува.
Може би, ако бъдещето съществуваше, конкретно и индивидуално, като нещо, което един по-схватлив мозък може да улови, тогава миналото нямаше да �� така примамливо
... как да накажеш човек, който има всичко у себе си, със себе си, около себе си?
Сега ще обсъдим любовта.
Какви силни думи, какви оръжия са скрити в планините, на удобни места, в специални скривалища в сърцето на гранита, зад стоманени покрития, така нашарени, че да наподобяват околните скали!
можеш да промениш котка, но не можеш да промениш моите герои.
Прието е да се смята, че ако човек успее да установи факта на оцеляването след смъртта, той ще може и да разреши, или пък ще е на път да разреши загадката на Съществуван��то. Уви, не е сигурно, че двата проблема се застъпват или съчетават.
Пристрастяващо действа Набоков.
(Смешно е да давам оценка и съм наясно, че го правя без да има особен смисъл.)
Ето тук оргазмът на изкуството пробягва по целия гръбначен стълб с несравнимо по-голяма сила от тази на сексуалния екстаз или метафизичната паника.
Това много ми хареса: Прозрачни неща, през които миналото сияе!
Да, за прозрачните неща, миналото и силата на нещо непоносимо като несподелената любов, но не успя да ме задържи като цяло. Погълна се в неговата стилистика, изпуснах "прозрачните неща", а текстът беше накъсан с твърде много френски изрази.
Сюжетът при Набоков винаги ми се е струвал почти невидим. Тънък, рехав ..., единствено необходим така както клончето за птицата - да кацне някъде. Анимационният стил на писане (така си го наричам) е достатъчно щур и сюрреалистичен, за да избегне нуждата от каквато и да е оценка, и все пак давам такава, но единствено по смисъла на това как се усещам в края.
Ако бях стихотворец (но аз съм само стилист)
Ето, това е човекът, който ми трябва. Здравей, човек! Не ме чува.
Може би, ако бъдещето съществуваше, конкретно и индивидуално, като нещо, което един по-схватлив мозък може да улови, тогава миналото нямаше да �� така примамливо
... как да накажеш човек, който има всичко у себе си, със себе си, около себе си?
Сега ще обсъдим любовта.
Какви силни думи, какви оръжия са скрити в планините, на удобни места, в специални скривалища в сърцето на гранита, зад стоманени покрития, така нашарени, че да наподобяват околните скали!
можеш да промениш котка, но не можеш да промениш моите герои.
Прието е да се смята, че ако човек успее да установи факта на оцеляването след смъртта, той ще може и да разреши, или пък ще е на път да разреши загадката на Съществуван��то. Уви, не е сигурно, че двата проблема се застъпват или съчетават.
February 27, 2020
Esta breve novela es suficiente para demostrar la maestría genial de Nabokov. Su estilo caótico pone al lector al borde de su capacidad de comprensión pero milagrosamente te conduce siempre hacia delante, queriendo leer más. La pena es que no sea más larga.
January 14, 2012
As a resident of Geneva, I think of this book whenever I see a "No Dogs" sign. The French text says CHIENS INTERDITS... but, as Nabokov asks, why exactly should it be illegal to cross a poodle with a dachshund?
And his comments on the sad decline of Swiss hot chocolate are all too true. Note to unwary tourists: if you see chocolat chaud à l'ancienne on a café menu, don't assume this refers to real, old-fashioned, hand-made hot chocolate. It means, rather, that they will charge you CHF 5.50 for a cup of tepid milk and a sachet of disgusting brown powder manufactured under the "à l'ancienne" brand. If you listen carefully, you'll be able to hear Nabokov spinning in his grave.
And his comments on the sad decline of Swiss hot chocolate are all too true. Note to unwary tourists: if you see chocolat chaud à l'ancienne on a café menu, don't assume this refers to real, old-fashioned, hand-made hot chocolate. It means, rather, that they will charge you CHF 5.50 for a cup of tepid milk and a sachet of disgusting brown powder manufactured under the "à l'ancienne" brand. If you listen carefully, you'll be able to hear Nabokov spinning in his grave.
December 23, 2018
2.5 stars!
NOTE: I'm really close to a milestone on my Instagram (3,000 followers!) and would love to reach it: www.instagram.com/alicetiedthebookish...
This is a novella following a character called Hugh, who travels to Europe on a mission to interview R. and experiences lots of other events such as falling in love and travelling. The length of the story is short but does cover some time span of a decade after Hugh's European travels. I struggled to connect with the characters and found the amount of backstory to be quite info-dumpy. Not a re-read for me!
NOTE: I'm really close to a milestone on my Instagram (3,000 followers!) and would love to reach it: www.instagram.com/alicetiedthebookish...
This is a novella following a character called Hugh, who travels to Europe on a mission to interview R. and experiences lots of other events such as falling in love and travelling. The length of the story is short but does cover some time span of a decade after Hugh's European travels. I struggled to connect with the characters and found the amount of backstory to be quite info-dumpy. Not a re-read for me!
December 2, 2014
Following his longest novelistic work, Ada, Nabokov gave us his smallest, Transparent Things: a miniature Fabergé egg of a novel, highly ornamental, highly sophisticated in design, but with an elegant simplicity. Within this ovoid coruscation of Nabokovian bravura and prosodic flourish, is a jeweled miniature of the master's oeuvre - a sort of encored farewell to literature, although he would go on to write Look at the Harlequins! and begin, but not finish, Laura. This novelette is a sort of pell-mell mélange of Nabokov's themes: time, love, madness, murder, style, and memory. The story is a deceptively simple one: a man, Hugh Person, recalls his three visits to Switzerland while he returns for his fourth and final visit: once as a young man with his father, then as a man on a job for a publisher, then with his wife. There is an enigmatic beauty to the way Nabokov discusses time:
We love the past because it is transparent to us, which by this book's definition is to say that it has a known history. To Hugh, Switzerland has a personal history for him, it marks the coincidental milestones of his declination into madness, and ultimately cleanly quarters his life into Machiavel son, disillusioned salaryman, husband to the Swiss nymphet Armande, and ostensibly-remorseful widower-murderer. His troubled past is part of him, though, and it gives him comfort. The future "does not exist" for him, dually referring to his fatal funeral pyre and also because generally it is yet unwritten.
This is a novel to be read in one sitting. At a slim 105 pages, it is a concise pleasure, but I think it would make a poor introduction to Nabokov. Nabokov must be loved and appreciated before he can be really explored, and so I wholly recommend Lolita as an introduction, and then a re-read of Lolita for the love of it. From the nymphet disparu the world of Nabokov opens up itself, lending to cerebral pleasure unmatched by most authors. From the Boswellian jaunt of Pale Fire to the tragicomedy of pauvre Pnin, and the reality-chagrinned chess champion Luzhin, to this slim volume: a better end-point than embarkation.
Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future.This is how we are introduced to the novel's main theme which is memory, or rather the seductive past. Why does the past so enchant us? Hugh's past is one mired by murder, death, a failed career and a marriage abbreviated by spousal murder. But it has an allure to Hugh, one that makes us shudder.
We love the past because it is transparent to us, which by this book's definition is to say that it has a known history. To Hugh, Switzerland has a personal history for him, it marks the coincidental milestones of his declination into madness, and ultimately cleanly quarters his life into Machiavel son, disillusioned salaryman, husband to the Swiss nymphet Armande, and ostensibly-remorseful widower-murderer. His troubled past is part of him, though, and it gives him comfort. The future "does not exist" for him, dually referring to his fatal funeral pyre and also because generally it is yet unwritten.
some 'future' events may be linked to others, O.K., but all are chimeric, and every cause-and-effect sequence is always a hit-and-miss affair, even if the lunette has actually closed around your neck, and the cretinous crowd holds its breath.The past has a particular seductiveness to Nabokov: in the shadow puppet world of his fiction all is predetermined, all is set, all is past. The future, being unknown, being a realm where things can 'get away from him' are excluded. Nabokov's works are patterned, intricately interwoven and consistent throughout and show a master at work always revising and meticulously planning. Every story of his is in the past, predetermined, and that is what enables it the level of Art he achieves. Nabokov is a treasure to re-read, maybe even moreso than he is to read, because his novels have a playfully ominous omniscience. Observe in Lolita the many hints at the fates of our protagonists, most startlingly the playbook entry which is anything but randomly selected. The past in a land that is concurrent with the present, it lives upright in the now while the present is still in its nascence.
This is a novel to be read in one sitting. At a slim 105 pages, it is a concise pleasure, but I think it would make a poor introduction to Nabokov. Nabokov must be loved and appreciated before he can be really explored, and so I wholly recommend Lolita as an introduction, and then a re-read of Lolita for the love of it. From the nymphet disparu the world of Nabokov opens up itself, lending to cerebral pleasure unmatched by most authors. From the Boswellian jaunt of Pale Fire to the tragicomedy of pauvre Pnin, and the reality-chagrinned chess champion Luzhin, to this slim volume: a better end-point than embarkation.
November 10, 2017
There was a point-probably during Ada- where Nabokov’s fiction lapsed into the self-absorption and solipsism, where his stories became vehicles for him to exhibiting his idiosyncrasy and neuroses, where, instead of being transported into aesthetic bliss, the reader is instead transported into the malevolent madness of Nabokov’s characters; that is not to say that the novels are necessarily bad or aesthetically displeasing, indeed, there are more than enough purple passages to keep the reader going, rather they lack an essential capacity of Nabokov’s fiction; pity (he once famously quipped that the key theme of his novels is beauty plus pity). For all his remonstrations that he was a profoundly amoral writer, Nabokov is one of the greatest humanists of literature, however when his novels are stripped of their moral core, whether it be Lolita’s sobs in the night, Pnin’s evocations of Mira Belochkin or Chernyshevski’s baleful mourning of his son, the novels tend to lose their vitality and power, instead their beauty and somewhat empty and hollow, like the faint iridescence of moonlight on an empty shore.
“Transparent Things” follows the story of Hugh Pearson; somnambulist, murderer, neurotic and madman, both the narrator and the plot contain devices and themes typical of Nabokov-unreliable narrators, memory, sexual deviance and meta-fiction, Nabokov never loses his gift of depicting the world in ever more original and beautiful ways-take, for example, his description of a pencil;
“It was not the hexagonal beauty of Virginia juniper or African cedar, with the maker’s name imprinted in silver foil, but a very plain, round, technically faceless old pencil of cheap pine, dyed a dingy lilac…the bare wood of its tapered end has darkened to plumbeous plum, thus merging in the tint with the blunt tip of graphite whose blind gloss alone distinguishes it from the wood.”
As Nabokov once stated, it is the details that matter in art and whereas other writers may have been satisfied with a nondescript description of a pencil (wood, brown, led, nib) Nabokov’s aim was to render and describe the world in ways in which it had never been described before-that was the artist’s vocation. For Nabokov, true artistic brilliance lay in originality and Nabokov’s rendering of the physical world of the novel is brilliant, however, as mentioned above, it is the inner workings of the novel, the characters, which is lacking; Nabokov’s aim was never to create characters who the reader could “relate” to-he would have considered any such aim to be completely juvenile, however the characters are unable to escape from the web of two-dimensionality within which Nabokov entraps them, or, rather, as all of the characters are types seen before in his fiction, perhaps the reader has become weary of the recycled neurotics who re-appear within his novels.
In a watered down version of Van Veen’s treatises on time, the protagonist, Hugh, is obsessed with time; how to capture it and furthermore how to escape its ever-present grip and love-in this case the obsessive love of Hugh for his pretty wife, Marion. The novel dimly echoes and recalls ‘Ada’, however is far lighter and more effervescent, joyful even, and although it could be considered more than just a footnote on a lifetime of genius, it represents one of the lesser jewel’s in Nabokov’s crown.
“Transparent Things” follows the story of Hugh Pearson; somnambulist, murderer, neurotic and madman, both the narrator and the plot contain devices and themes typical of Nabokov-unreliable narrators, memory, sexual deviance and meta-fiction, Nabokov never loses his gift of depicting the world in ever more original and beautiful ways-take, for example, his description of a pencil;
“It was not the hexagonal beauty of Virginia juniper or African cedar, with the maker’s name imprinted in silver foil, but a very plain, round, technically faceless old pencil of cheap pine, dyed a dingy lilac…the bare wood of its tapered end has darkened to plumbeous plum, thus merging in the tint with the blunt tip of graphite whose blind gloss alone distinguishes it from the wood.”
As Nabokov once stated, it is the details that matter in art and whereas other writers may have been satisfied with a nondescript description of a pencil (wood, brown, led, nib) Nabokov’s aim was to render and describe the world in ways in which it had never been described before-that was the artist’s vocation. For Nabokov, true artistic brilliance lay in originality and Nabokov’s rendering of the physical world of the novel is brilliant, however, as mentioned above, it is the inner workings of the novel, the characters, which is lacking; Nabokov’s aim was never to create characters who the reader could “relate” to-he would have considered any such aim to be completely juvenile, however the characters are unable to escape from the web of two-dimensionality within which Nabokov entraps them, or, rather, as all of the characters are types seen before in his fiction, perhaps the reader has become weary of the recycled neurotics who re-appear within his novels.
In a watered down version of Van Veen’s treatises on time, the protagonist, Hugh, is obsessed with time; how to capture it and furthermore how to escape its ever-present grip and love-in this case the obsessive love of Hugh for his pretty wife, Marion. The novel dimly echoes and recalls ‘Ada’, however is far lighter and more effervescent, joyful even, and although it could be considered more than just a footnote on a lifetime of genius, it represents one of the lesser jewel’s in Nabokov’s crown.
July 29, 2019
I won’t call this facile because, you know, who’s to say? That there’s depth of a sort here is clear given Geoff Wilt’s and MJ Nichols’s reactions among others, but it seems possible there’s a disconnect between that depth and the surface, the connection only there for those with intimate former knowledge of Nabokov. Me, I have no such knowledge. I’ve barely gone near the guy since I was 19, when Lolita made me shrug and move on without further thought. Until now, I hadn’t quite understood that shrug: I’d put it down to kitsch, to overwriting, to excessive desire to please a crowd (not “the” crowd, but a crowd, for whom lexical contortion is paramount), but now I suspect its cause was sheer banality. Likewise, to me, Transparent Things is pretty much all prose-style, and a dated, fussy, convoluted prose style at that. At first, it’s true, I appreciated the light touch:
But as I read on I grew tired of “playful”, and suspicious of the author’s motives in weaving this pointless-seeming story. To me, it looks like a story made to illustrate an idea or philosophy. Milan Kundera once said, while discussing Kafka, that a poet who serves any truth other than “the truth to be discovered” is a “false poet”, and I can’t help but suspect Nabokov of that falseness. Transparent Things seems artificial―not unrealistic (that I encourage, I applaud) but lacking fire, instinct, inspiration. All dressed up with nowhere to go. To me, it’s like a Yngwie Malmsteen song: the guy can play, granted, but if the song he saturates with curlicues is dull, bland and instantly dated, what’s the point?
All of which is to say, phew, ain’t subjectivity a funny thing? When it comes down to it, maybe it’s the tone I dislike as much as anything. Something in his demeanor, in his choice of subjects, says “timewaster” to me. And anyone writing a 20,000 word novella who thinks he has time to discuss hot chocolate just gets my goat. Zero sense of urgency. Impossible to see it as a story that needed telling.
Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.
But as I read on I grew tired of “playful”, and suspicious of the author’s motives in weaving this pointless-seeming story. To me, it looks like a story made to illustrate an idea or philosophy. Milan Kundera once said, while discussing Kafka, that a poet who serves any truth other than “the truth to be discovered” is a “false poet”, and I can’t help but suspect Nabokov of that falseness. Transparent Things seems artificial―not unrealistic (that I encourage, I applaud) but lacking fire, instinct, inspiration. All dressed up with nowhere to go. To me, it’s like a Yngwie Malmsteen song: the guy can play, granted, but if the song he saturates with curlicues is dull, bland and instantly dated, what’s the point?
All of which is to say, phew, ain’t subjectivity a funny thing? When it comes down to it, maybe it’s the tone I dislike as much as anything. Something in his demeanor, in his choice of subjects, says “timewaster” to me. And anyone writing a 20,000 word novella who thinks he has time to discuss hot chocolate just gets my goat. Zero sense of urgency. Impossible to see it as a story that needed telling.
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