The Electric Spark

The Electric Spark
In the first sentence of his biography Speak Memory, Vladimir Nabokov gives his readers perhaps the greatest insight into the author’s most intimate thoughts. “[Common] sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” It is a brief statement, one written almost so casually that the unintelligent reader will miss it. Yet, it is from these few words that we may in fact begin to see the very principles that drove Nabokov both in life and as a writer, the electric spark of the life that dares to be great, to reach beyond the normal human scope and dream of the infinite complexities and potential of man.
It is an interesting path that Nabokov brings us to. Like many before him, he sees the human power of creativity, the “soul,” and its ability to create light where once there was darkness. Humanity has the distinct ability to alter and reshape the world around it to recreate “reality” and so force our own perceptions on the world. In each of us, Nabokov sees this ability, and, therefore, the ability to shed light in a world of darkness.
However, we are not all gifted with the same creative spark as Nabokov points out in Pale Fire, in the guise of John Shade, when we are treated to another peak into his mind and his infatuation with humanity’s electric spark when he mentions William Shakespeare, a man, he says, who could light up a town with the brilliance and creative powers that he bestowed upon the world. And who is to argue with such words? Shakespeare wrote on scale that few, if any, can hardly dream of. To this day men and women, college students, professors, even the simply curious reader constantly find themselves immersed in his plays and his poems drawing from them for their own artistic endeavors. He could, indeed, quite literally light up a town with the millions of people who constantly immerse themselves in his works.
Nabokov as Shade goes on to mention a dead bride, and her soul perhaps residing in some lamp on a “bedside table.” So then, we are faced with the two extremities of the creative spectrum, Shakespeare, the brilliant and quotable mind, and some less creative person who is not given a name. While both are no doubt creative simply because of their humanity, Nabokov shows us the different levels of that creativity in four short lines. With William Shakespeare we are dazzled by a brilliance that far surpasses the “dead bride” in the lamp.
But why use electricity to describe the spark that is creativity when so many before and since have used a flame? We have seen it often enough. When a writer wishes to convey the power of the human brain, it is a candle and not a light bulb that is the measuring stick of that power. Why then would Nabokov choose a different medium through which to project his thoughts of the soul and human life?
Perhaps it has something to do with the discovery of electricity itself and man’s ability to harness that power for his own goals. We all know, of course, of Edison and his invention of the electric light bulb, the great invention that would lead man away from the necessity for fire for light and eventually for warmth as well.
While a great deal is owed to Mr. Edison for his invention, we cannot forget another name that was instrumental not only in discovering ways to light the world, but also in discovering ways to move and control electricity that at the time were considered eccentric at best. His name was Nicolas Tesla. He developed the concept of moving electricity without wires and also developed many of the principles of electromagnetism that are still useful to this day. In short, Tesla took what humanity first knew of electricity and expanded upon it, turning what had once been a relatively unknown natural force that could be used only to a certain extent so long as wires were involved into a thing as limited by laws as anything else, something that could be controlled and used for the benefit of humanity.
In essence, Tesla did what was begun thousands of years ago when man first discovered fire. He learned to harness the very power of nature that had puzzled humanity for so long. Perhaps then, Nabokov is still using the fire just in a different medium, one that he sees as more controlled than the sometimes chaotic power of fire, and maybe that is the key. Control. Imagination is the ability of man to control his environment much as he has learned to control electricity. It is harnessing that which is in nature for the betterment and enjoyment of the human race. As the electric light allows us to control the darkness of the world in which we live, so to our imaginations allow us to escape the world in which we live and create our own “reality.”
Going back to the Shakespeare and bride example, we see then what Nabokov is finally trying to tell us. Shakespeare we already know. He is the man who allowed each of us a glimpse into a thousand other worlds full of characters that we could both love and hate. He allowed us to see that which we had not imagined was there that which only he could show us. That is the brilliance of Shakespeare as Nabokov sees it. His creative spark ignites not just the one bed side lamp where some man or woman sits reading a story of some “distant northern land” but a whole town, probably whole cities, each transported to worlds of his own making.
The bride on the other hand lights only one small bulb because in her life she probably only had the dreams that she kept to herself. I do not think that Nabokov is saying that this is a bad thing. Instead, I think he is only pointing out the gulf that separates Shakespeare from the everyday mind. It is not a condemnation of one person but the exaltation of another.
What then can we learn from Nabokov? What hidden gems does he have waiting for us in the confines of these few small passages that any “average” reader will simply pass over as unimportant? We know from our readings of Nabokov that he likes to hide things within his books for the intelligent reader to discover, and, just perhaps, he left the greatest secrets and the greatest advice on the page as well.
From Lolita, to Pale Fire, to Transparent Things we as readers are shown a constant desire for immortality or connection to the hereafter among the characters. They each strive in their own way to become immortalized. Each seeks to reach beyond what is known to them and become something more, to become something “unreal” or corporeal. Some even do. Perhaps, though, we as the readers have already been graced with the secret that these characters so powerfully strive for.
It is the spark of creativity, the electric spark, that manmade elixir of life, that allows for immortality. As Humbert finally discovers in Lolita the only immortality is that which is gained through the power of art, through creating something so rich and powerful that it not only affects you as the creator but those around you and on through the years.
Nabokov, then, has tipped his hand. He like so many others before him, I think, wishes to leave his mark on the world, to become immortal, not in the sense that his body never dies, but in the sense that he never dies within the world of creativity. It is a goal that so many share and so few achieve. Shakespeare did it, as Nabokov points out.
Life, as Nabokov puts it, is but a brief spark of light in the vast expanse of two dark infinities. We are here for only a fraction of a moment compared with the two vast expanses of time that preceded us and that we leave as our successor. It is what we do in that minute fraction of time that will determine our spark. Will we be a light bulb, shining bravely for the briefest of moments before flickering out, or will we aspire to loftier goals, to light cities for a hundred generations after we are gone?
If Nabokov wished to become immortal, to shine his light through the infinitesimal darkness, then I think he succeeded. Why else would we be reading his work more than thirty years after his death? But not only has he achieved that lofty perch for himself, but he has written the blue print over and over again that others might follow in his footsteps.
The great thing about electricity is that it does not stop at one light bulb but continues on to the next. In so doing, it allows for the next creative mind to grow and prosper in its light that one day another city might be lit with the workings of the next great artist whether he be painter or sculptor or writer.
Art, then, is a way for that creative human spirit to reach beyond the small brief moment of existence and shine brightly through the ages illuminating the possibilities and dreams of a new generation that in its own time will create art as powerful as any before it, building on the light before until eventually there is only one tiny speck of dark followed by an infinity of light.

thoughts on paper

I haven't actually written my paper yet but I had an idea and thought that I'd put it on my blog. I was going to do something with the electricity that seems to be prevalent throughout Nabokov and link that to the two dark infinities at the beginning and end of our lives. That's what I've got so far and I'll be working on it pretty hard over the next couple of days.

William Carlos Williams and Pale Fire

While reading William's "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" for my American Lit class, I came across three rather interesting discoveries that may or may not have to do with Nabokov's Pale Fire. The first is of course the widow who has lost her husband of thirty-five years recently. The second is a mention of "cold fire" in the fifth line of the play, and the third is the mention of suicide by drowning at the end of the poem which the reader never sees take place.

The first may not be as much of a connection as a coincedence, however, the second and third gave me a slight thrill as I read them. Why would Nabokov not take seemingly obscure references from an almost unknown source in order to create his work? When he says "Help me
Will" might it not also refer to the man with two Will names? I may of course be reaching here but the thought was too interesting to not blog about. Here is a link to the poem should anyone want to read it.

http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/the_widows_lament_in_springtime.html

Midterm Paper

It is the sign of the true artist, the true master of his craft, when he can put the siplest of phrases down on paper and bring to mind a whole slew of events to the reader. Yet, it is not even a phrse, but rather a pair of words that, by themselves mean nothing, and together mean even less. Yet somehow we, as readers, are shown a full world, presented a full story in less time than it takes most of us to even begin to paint the picture of our story.

These are the first impressions of "picnic, lightning." It is perhaps the simplest and greatest of the many moments in the novel Lolita when Humbert Humbert is describing the death of his mother, but in its simplicity there is a power that cannot be denied. The reader is plunged into a world, if even for the briefest of seconds, where we are faced with a grizzly death that is left to our own imaginations. Even those of us who first simply skim over these seemingly unimportant words are eventually drawn back to them, as if somehow they will give us a true glance into the mind of one of the most infamous characters in literary history.

It is one of the amazing feats of Nabokov, much like his class list, a kind of poetry in the simplest of places. Yet Nabokov is not the first to have used two seemingly innocuous words that have resonated with a power that little else can. In the bible there is a small passage in John, chapter 11, verse 35. It simply states: "Jesus wept." From this, as with "picnic, lightning," we are barraged with images that tell a story so powerful that we become speechless, perhaps even envious of the great masters who were able to do what we could only dream of. We write our letters and essays, our novels and plays, yet none can even compare to two small words in the middle of a page, placed there as if by accident.

Nabokov has then, through two famous words, given us a glimpse of the true power he held over his craft, the absolute mastery he exuded over each word of each line fo his books. All are placed there with the delicacy and intricacy of a master sculptor trying to piece together ten thousand tiny pebbles into the masterpiece of a lifetime. Perhaps the freatest thing about this ten thousand piece puzzle is that each piece, when examined closely, tells its own amazing story. With "picnic, lightning," we are assaulted by a series of painful images that each of us can relate to. Perhaps they are more powerful in that the tragic event portrayed happens to a loved one, and so each of us sees, not Humbert's mother but our own, standing in a serene, almost dreamlike, world that turns suddenly and ferociously nightmarish. It is something that we have all feared, the sudden loss of a loved one in the happiest of times, and to have it staring at us from the page, our deepest fears immortalized in two words, is a very powerful and moving experience.

Perhaps that, then, is why the two words "picnic, lightning" inspire art to this day because like the best art it is something simple and primal that reaches to our very core. It is this ability to lay bare the most intimate and darkest fears of our souls, in two words, that Nabokov should be praised for. Throughout the book Lolita he shows us this horrid world that we do not dare be a part of, that we do not dare to glance at simply due to the fact that we do not want to see ourselves as part of this dark world. Yet it is even before Nabokov reveals the true dark nature of his main character that we are first introduced to this horrid world. Consider it a shot over the bow so to speak, a warning to all who would enter that the knowledge contained within these pages is not for the faint of heart. Remember this as you travel deeper into the book that you were warned the most elegant and powerful way possible. A simple phrase, two words, "picnic, lightning."

A Case for Kinbote

In first encoutnering Charles Kinbote, we are faced with a man that few can tolerate let alone sympathize with. His forward and commentary, even the index that he has appended, to the poem of his dead friend John Shade have nothing to do with the poem itself. He is constantly telling us of a story about a king in exile from the distant land of Zembla. As we move deeper into the commentary we are forced time and again to read of the "sad" story of a Zemblan king that many of us could not care less for, and eventually it wears on us.

Yet, when we look deeper, I think that we can begin to see something else creeping out of the endless dregs of Zemblan references. Perhaps there is more to Charles Kinbote than meets the eye. Perhaps he is the lost king Charles Xavier. Could this be? there are many hints throughout the forward and even in the commentary to the point that I begin to think that he is indeed our exiled king.

With that revelation I have come to realize that Charles Kinbote is not writing about Zembla because he is a pompous ass. Rather, he is constantly writing about Zembla because he has lost something that is truly precious to him. Perhaps it is my own fault for not recognizing it on first reading the book. I did not see as Kinbote saw.

I now think that Kinbote is writing about Zembla much as John Shade wrote about his daughter Hazel. Both were stripped of something precious to them, violently, suddenly, and with no sense of control in the matter. As Kinbote reads the poem by a dead poet who is lost to a bullet meant for him, perhaps he sees Zembla because the loss that he feels pouring off the page reminds him so much of the loss that he felt when being exiled from his beloved home. He reciprocates the feelings that Shade expresses in his poem the only way that he knows how, in a forward and commentary that tell his own tragic story.

Perhaps it is a bit arrogant to associate the death of a child with the loss of a country. But how do we know? I myself have experienced neither of these things. I can only imagine how horrible it was for John Shade to recieve the news of his daughters death. I can only imgaine the fear that gripped Xavier as he was forced to flea the homeland that he had loved and been a part of all of his life.

I think that Kinbote felt the same way. He could not comprehend the loss of a child because it had not happened to him, and so could not adequately do justice to such a beautiful poem by pompously assuming that he could write of the pain of a child's death. Perhaps then he took the higher road, writing of the loss of a country, which he could understand. He is not trying to be arrogant. I think that it just appears so to those of us who cannot reciprocate.

Perhaps, then, it is we who are the arrogant ones, assuming that we know why Kinbote would write of his homeland rather than the death that so blatantly stands out in the poem. I would urge, each of you then to reread Pale Fire in this new light. If, in the end, you still feel that Kinbote is an ass, then perhaps he is, but maybe we can see, beneath the arrogant talk, a pain that is too hard to express in anything other than a beautiful poem. It is a pale fire. Not bright and illuminary, but soft and subtle, so that we do not have to cry twice while reading the book.

On Zembla

Having just finished reading the actual poem "Pale Fire," I was surprised to find on line 937 an actual reference to Zembla. It was, of course, only one reference, and I found it even more amusing that he mentions the one thing that Kinbote wants him to talk about most of all in an aside almost while he is talking about shaving. This struck my interest and I had to skim through the commentary if for no other purpose than to see how Kinbote handled the mentioning of his beloved Zembla in such an offhand sort of way. As I suspected, there is a note. It recounts Kinbote's reading of the notecard that possesses this line and the asside that Shade had written to that line the day before he died. Kinbote writes of his sadness at this point, but it is not for his friend who was lost so recently after writing this small piece. NO, it is for the fact that such a small piece alone was reserved for his precious Zembla.

Capturing the Past

This is a picture of my brother and my brother and myself on our 6th or 7th birthday. The first thing you will notice is that we are dressed mainly the same with the exception of the shorts, my brother's shorts being red, and mine blue. The second is that we are both reading a birthday card, most likely from the same person, as our parents always thought it prudent that we should open presents from the same benefactor at the same time so as to avoid jealousy. This is perhaps the very beginning of the present opening as it seems that none of the presents have been torn into and no wrapping paper is strown hap-hazardly on the ground for the small baby in the back ground, most likely my new-born cousin at the time, Mariel (You will no doubt notice her as the small pink ball in the background focused on something off camera). On the coffee table with the presents is an old, white cordless phone. Behind my brother is an old-fashioned fire place that came out of an old in that was used to build our house in the late 1920's. On the mantle are several old photographs of family members including one of my brother. Stylish old drapes cover a window in front of which sits an even older blue chair with a stylish throw on the back engraved with the letter S. A picture of some scene I cannot make out hangs on the wall next to the chair. In the dining room, the room that can be viewed over my shoulders, you will notice an abundance of plants as well as the same stylish old drapes. Blocked form view of the camera by myself, and most likely trying to appease her newborn daughter is, I bleieve, my aunt Cathie. It is a simple picture taken in a simple time when all I really had to worry about was when the next batch of presents would be coming.

First Memory

The first thing that I can truly remember comes to me perhaps because I felt, even then, at the beginning of my life, that I was witness to a powerfully emotional moment for those who I knew were closest to me. I too, then, was struck by this defining moment of life.
My parents, brother, and I along with an older man I knew only slightly, who would later become my grandfather, stood around a large bed in a white room. Dark colored furniture was scattered throughout the room, and I remember wondering why the bed was metal rather than wood like the rest of the room. I remeber sitting in my mother's lap as she looked lovingly at the person in the bed, who I would later learn was my grandmother. I remember that she wore a torquoise cap, though at the time I did not know the color. The cap hid the fact that she no longer had any hair.
In many ways I can only remember the few happy moments in an otherwise sad day. What I did not know was that this was the last time I would see my grandmother alive. Perhaps it is strange that my first memory is plagued with sadness, but I look at it in a different light, as the only chance that I would really have to remember my mother's mother, and it is a gift that I would never give up.