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.