thoughts.

note: i dont what the hell is wrong with the font but its all jumbled around.
I'm sitting at the library (the front desk, should be working) so i have to keep this relatively short.
After finishing Pale Fire, I was relived from self imposed burden i felt that: i should really like this book. And I did, i did while reading it, it was uncountably great, but only after i finished the book did I realize how much i liked Pale Fire. I feel though, that I struggled through because my mind was so caught up in catching up to Nabokov that i lost sight of the material at hand. I don't know that old saying about missing the forest, but i'm sure that it is applicable here. True Pale Fire is a piece of intricacy delicate and complex as a woven shroud, but when focused on the milieu of threads, i didn't see the grandeur they as a whole created.

I enjoyed the detective work required to read Pale Fire, but i felt a longing to discuss the aesthetics. I supposes it’s not something the really needs to be discussed in that it is so obvious, but as much as Nabokov is a clever and complex writer, he is a beautiful one. And this I feel to be, at times, most important.

Anyway, now that we’re getting into Transparent Things, I realize once again the power of poetics that Nabokov presents.

I guess this would be some common place from Transparent Things- not even the best stuff, just some things I found that I’ve enjoyed-

“The receptionist (blond bun, pretty neck) said no, Monsieur Kronig had left to become manager, imagine, of the Fantastic in Blur (or so it sounded). A grassgreen skyblue postcard…… ‘he died last year’ added the girl (who en face did not resemble Armande one bit), abolishing whatever interest a photocrhome of the Majestic in Chur might have presented……what would have been a rugged, horsey, stoop belied every inch of his fantastic majesty.” –even when I try I can’t help but draw my quotes on.

Actually this is posing a serious problem, most of the quotes I want to show don’t really make sense without long lead in, and lead out, and even then they probably don’t fully flower until I have read the whole book. But I continue…

After a long series of descriptions stemming from the description of the pencil he closes, “and the tree in the forest and the forest in the world that Jack built.” A reference to the old mother goose tale (see also My Book and Heart Shall Never Part)

Again on page 517during a phone call, “ ‘You Person?’”… “yes it’s me, I mean ‘you,’ I mean you mispronounced it most enchantingly.’…… you drop your haitches like-like pearls into a blindman’s cup.’/ “Well, the correct pronunciation is ‘cap.’ I win.”

Again I realize how futile it is to express my glee and enjoyment of these lines without simply rewriting the entire thing. I sort of feel like I’m telling one "you had to be there stories", which no one person of your audience enjoys. But hopefully you get it too, because this is awesome.