Skip to main content

Light of My Life, Fire etc etc etc

Have you ever read Nabokov? Here's a sample sentence: "This slow, somewhat somnambulistic ascension in self-engendered darkness held obvious delights." That's about him as a child walking up some stairs with his eyes closed.

That's actually one of my favorite sentences of his in recent memory, because you look at each word and it's like "daamn, self-engendered darkness -- that's EXACTLY what it is."

That being said, I both like and really don't like him.

I've mentioned before that in college I took a course on him because my favorite professor was teaching it. We read eight -- EIGHT -- of his books, a fact by which I am still outraged because it's more than I've read of many authors I quite like. And now with Speak, Memory, I'm just adding to that number. Boo.

But as with anything you're over-exposed to, I have a weird fondness for him. I'll say an affectionate "Nabokov, you bastard" when he decides to write his millionth inside-joke-with-himself into his book. Because that's what he does. There are innumerable jokes-just-for-him and tricks in his books and I HATE THAT, but I've gotten used to it. I'm just kind of resigned to not getting a vast portion of what I read of his.

What did I enjoy, you say? Why, a few things.

Invitation to a Beheading. I took my Nabokov course at the same time I took a Dickens course, and Invitation was SO WELCOME by the time I finished the semester. Because Dickens is great in small amounts. Meaning one book. Maybe two. When you get to the third or fourth in a small amount of time, you want to murder the Victorian era and all its strictures. "Oh, of COURSE this is going to happen and this other thing can't happen, because that was the accepted morality/decorum." I was so sick of Victorian lit by the end of that course, all I wanted was its antithesis. Which would be Invitation, because it is INSANE and has no rules.

Check out this synopsis: "The novel takes place in a prison and relates the final twenty days of Cincinnatus C., a citizen of a fictitious country, who is imprisoned and sentenced to death for 'gnostical turpitude.'" Only there is more. Fantastic, weirdass book.

Lolita just irritated me. When searching my e-mail for Feelings At the Time of Reading It, I came across this note to my brother: "People who say Atlas Shrugged and Lolita are their favorite books are a particular kind of dumb."

I still stand by that to a certain degree, but I have more tolerance for it than I used to, i.e. people can say they like it and I won't instantly name them pretentious literary wannabes.

Basically I'm just a big fan of Pnin and Pale Fire. They are both awesome AND, bonus, were first written in English, so you're not getting the translated versions. 

This was obviously a necessary post.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't...

Book Blogger Hop, Pt II

All right. The question for this week is:  "Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?" Oh-ho my. I have an issue with book commitment. I start a new book, and it's exciting and fresh, and I get really jazzed about it, and then 20% of the way through, almost without fail, I start getting bored and want to start another book. I once had seven books going at the same time, because I kept getting bored and starting new ones. It's a sickness. Right now I'm being pretty good and working on The Monk , Northanger Abbey , Kissing the Witch , and I'm about to start Waiting for the Barbarians since my friend lent it to me. But The Monk and NA are basically books I only read when I'm at work, so I don't see it so much as working on four books, as having books in different locales. Yes. This entry wasn't as good as some of the others, but I shall rally on the morrow. Yes I shall.

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar...