Paul

Still chuckling at the image of a dead horse massacre. Good one! And well said. The attacks against religion are not new and it would seem that they do promise to continue well into the future. as correctly predicted above. So, if one is indeed interested in erasing the religious impulse from mankind -- which I am not yet convinced is a wise idea, or achievable -- then it would seem, at the least, that a more effective approach is needed. And if one does not like the horse metaphor, then perhaps the Rock of Sisyphus might do as well for an endless and arduous activity that goes nowhere. My underlying discomfort with the book stems from Dawkins association of "evil" and "religion." It seems to me they are definitely separable ideas and that Dawkins, and others, might do better to address the sources of evil in mankind. Because they may just be us, religion or no religion. I think he has the wrong horse by the wrong tail. Oops, or the wrong rock. Or, . . . . whatever.

Andy, I was tongue-in-cheek about your post being a recommendation. I recognize that you are unhappy with the book but I was intrigued by your reason that there is something vaguely wrong with it, or "slightly frustratingly annoying about it." I have bought the book because, apart from that subliminal and nagging reason, the book sounds interesting enough and I am curious to see how that reason shows itself. Perhaps I will agree with you eventually. Or, perhaps I will say the book is worse than you say, and that you were being generous. For the moment however, after only 60 pages, I have to say I am definitely interested in the story and how it will all turn out, and also definitely interested in the author's unusual way of telling it. Perhaps things will get worse, but I definitely have no quarrel with your post. And I recognize that, perversely, I am reading the book against your advice, partly to satisfy a curiosity. It sounds to me like an unusual book and I tend to seek out 'unusual.'

Yes indeed! And love stories knock me over, every time.

YAY!....

Dogmatix, That is absolutely the most heart-stealing scene of the whole book for me, when Vera is standing in the cold with her son on the railroad overpass, shifting her weight from foot to foot to stay warm, waiting patiently as her son waits patiently to see the train signal change, or the train to come, while Vladimir looks at the whole scene and one can just imagine the depth of his love for Vera, showing such a depth of patient love for their only child and the son he also loves so much. Welcome to the club! YAY! I hope there may never be a last Nabokov for you!

Did someone say "dead horse?" Even Dawkins, did I hear?

Dogmatix, Yes! The exact moment, and he noticed it precisely! And remembered it. That is why it seemed more than a little strange to me to read a short and very enigmatic paragraph in Chapter 1, which he seemed to slip in almost unnoticeably at the end of Section 2 there. Here he is, in effect, answering a question that hasn't been asked, namely, "Where did your talent come from?" and in effect he is saying "I don't know. Talent I may have, yes. But why? I don't know." He has completed his musings on the nature of time, and the impenetrable walls of the abyss, and has already segued into beautiful pictorial descriptions of the early memorable events of his life, especially the endearing memory of the small child, kneeling in his pajamas and peering out the window on a train journey while his heels get cold. He has even said, to open that paragraph Here is an overwhelmingly powerful description of the majesty of human consciousness -- greater than any paltry, pouch-sized cosmos! -- and an undeniable assertion of its significance in his own life. And yet. And yet, where did his talent come from? He cannot tell, he tells us. Carrying forward the thought of your earlier post, about the possibility of the Divine in his thought, and using his own very image of surpassing even the cosmos, it would seem that here is yet another indication that in some way he thinks of the entirety of existence as being larger than merely the lives we live here. All expressed in an almost unnoticeable, but overwhelming, six lines of his writing. Véra was once quoted as saying (paraphrased) that notions of the Divine run through all of all of her husband's writing, not just his poetry. I am beginning to believe her.

Oh boy, Andy! That "something slightly awry" really gets my curiosity up! To the point where I am absolutely going to have to read the story now! I cannot possibly let a recommendation like that go by! Seriously!

Hi dogmatix, pontalba, I see I am a little late to the party, but I was completely intrigued by the quote that you, dogmatix, highlighted, where VN uses the phrase "rather appalling country" about Russia, as you correctly suggested. The thought crossed my mind that you also might be thinking of the time(s), as I was, when VN commented that his regret at leaving Russia was not the loss of his wealth, which was confiscated, but rather the loss of the countryside of his fondest childhood memories. The contrast of the two thoughts is indeed striking and I have been scratching my head since, as to how he could possibly use the word "appalling." Finally, it has seemed to me that VN was prompted to realize that life for Mademoiselle with the Nabokov's was not so much fun, being restricted to the single mis-pronounced word "giddy-yeh" (for "where"), and perhaps lacking accustomed amenities in a rustic environment (and here I am completely guessing), with muddy roads, cold weather and so on. For VN himself, life was not so bad at all, and he was accustomed to it; but for an imported governess it might have felt rather different, as he describes at length. It seems like an interesting example of a single person seeing the same situation from two different perspectives, at two different times, in two different contexts, and (gallantly) choosing to voice (or correct) the governess's perspective. To me that sounds like the gesture of an open-minded and appreciative man, even if his remark comes across as somewhat judgmental about the rosiness of her memories. It seems to me like a complicated set of perspectives that he is trying to grapple with at once. All of which I think says about the same thing that Pontalba said, but with many more words. The other possibility, that he might have been referring to his view of the "appalling" situation of the Country under the Bolsheviks at the time he was writing Speak Memory just doesn't seem to really come into it as a possibility. He was a much more careful writer than that, to permit such confusion, I would say. Anyway, now, finally now, I am rounding the corner into Chapter Two, hoping to catch up and freshen all these thoughts in my head. Forward!

Well, of course! Congratulations!

Dogmatix, You are so right! He is writing Speak Memory about the events of his life, but I find that I am reading it more about him as a person. (And of course the glories of those long toes, when one can recognize the allusions).

Pontalba, What a beautiful and illuminating post! He seems more, and more, and more to be clearly recognizable as a son of both his parents. And proud they really would have been (or are).

Dogmatix, He does seem to be doing exactly that right there while, on the other hand, remaining entirely non-committal with respect to belief in the details of any organized religion or in the God of any organized religion. In that respect he seems to be following his mother's attitudes toward religion that I think I'm going to be finding summarized in Chapter 2, which I am now getting to (again). The summary phrase that I remember, standing out from previous reading, was his confidence in "marching in the right direction" toward an afterlife, without at the same time being able to know any specifics about its details. His religious attitude pokes through here and there as I recall -- in the paragraph you note, and also elsewhere here and there in his novels -- but most notably in Transparent Things where the afterlife becomes a full-fledged (and interactive!) part of the story for the first and only(?) time. IMO it's a fascinating theme to try to follow through his work, because his viewpoint seems to be quite uniquely his own and he holds to it quite consistently. I hope some of this sounds familiar to all of you who are ahead of me in the reading. My memory speaks also, but very cloudy.

Pontalba, He was definitely a very unusual man for his aristocratic background. (And in that way, he took after his father). I think I remember a very telling remark from the famous ancestry Chapter 3, from my first read of Speak Memory some time ago. I seem to remember one of his aunts(?) telling him that if his democratic Kadet ideas for government succeeded, then the end result would work against his personal benefit, meaning against his wealthy position in society. As it turns out, that came to pass in its own way, even if it was the Bolshevik Revolution and not the Kadet government that brought about his loss and drove him from Russia.

Pontalba, I do think children start out thinking that the world they know is the way the world is, and always has been. I remember having a similar realization to your own, that the world can change and that it must not have always been the way I thought it to be. I forget the occasion (sorry VN, /groan/) but I do remember having that realization. It's fascinating that VN also remembered such an event and that he chose to describe it so vividly. And that he remembered it started such a chain of speculation in his life. Interesting also that he chose so explicitly to mine his memory so deeply for its recollections. All fascinating insights into his creative process. (Which sparks the thought for another post, actually, in a bit).

Very belatedly, I offer a post that goes way back to the very beginning of Speak Memory. I hope it is only a pebble in the roadway of this glorious discussion, which is showing me so much of the book through your all's eyes, and that the pebble is easily circumvented or rode over to get on with the discussion. I've been bogged down in the the other world from this forum (namely the Real World) and haven't made it past the end of Chapter 1. However, the upside is that I have been staring hard at the Chapter and rereading, over and over, VN's opening remarks about his interest in time, before and after our lives. At first they seem like a loose collection of assorted thoughts. The memorable opening metaphor is of course: 1. "The cradle rocks above an abyss and . . . our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness;" 2. Followed by VN's observation that he rebels against that state of affairs and, "short of suicide" [/gasp/, oh no!], has sought diligently and unsuccessfully to find an exit; 3. Which he then follows with his memory of his first realization of time when walking along between his parents. It occurs to me that if one unrolls those memories backward, and replays them in chronological order, one has A. His first memory of his realization of time when out walking with his parents; B. His strenuous subsequent attempts throughout his entire life to solve the puzzle and find an answer; C. And finally, his summary of his mature thoughts in the striking metaphor that opens the book. So, one might see that opening metaphor as a brilliant summary of his thoughts, rather than merely an introduction to his book! But, even more fascinating to me, is that we may have here, before our very eyes, one of the few detailed glimpses into VN's actual thought processes as he assembles various events and thoughts from his life, and collects them finally into a sublimely brilliant passage such as we have seen flow from his pen so many times. Bravo! Bravo! Author! Author! A lifetime of events and mature reflection is summarized in that brilliant passage.

That sounds good enough for me, Pontalba!

Hi Still, Glad to hear your voice; sorry to hear about Auster's writing. Drat. I means I too shall be moving New York Trilogy a little lower in my stack. Maybe down below Moviegoer. Gotta keep that stack organised.

Pontalba, Waaal, it is true that you'll have a hard time avoiding Beatty (or Keaton), but it also has a cast of thousands that you can see listed on IMDB, including a live talking Henry Miller, for example, commenting on the times, and other notables whose names I had only ever heard of, plus actors such as Jack Nicholson playing still other notables. It is as much talking history as it is drama and I thought it was a feast for people watching. And now I'll leave you in peace to make up your own mind. Back to regular programming.

Pontalba, Muggle, I was thinking of the 25th Anniversary Edition DVD with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, coming in October at Amazon. If have it right and knew how to make a nicer link. http://www.amazon.com/Reds-25th-Anniversary-Beatty/dp/B000GG4Y32/sr=1-1/qid=1159639775/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9512507-2501634?ie=UTF8&s=dvd PS Also picked up Ten Days that Shook the World and it has one of the most glowing recommendations for a book that I have ever seen, in the Intro by A.J.P.Taylor: "Reed's book is not only the best account of the Bolshevik Revolution, it comes near to being the best account of any revolution." Boyd of course has similar praise for Speak, Memory among autobiographies. Sound like two fabulous books.

That is the book! And John Reed is famous as its author. I haven't read the book (yet /sigh/) but he is also the subject of the absolutely marvelous documentary film and love story, Reds, which I see on Amazon is going to be re-released on DVD soon. The movie is not to be missed, for all of the luminaries it contains speaking live in first person, and also to see who John Reed really was. Amazing times, and an amazing man (and woman).

Way to go Dogmatix! That's dedication to the cause! Hope you enjoy.

Sleepy ROTFL. Be back later.

I like this idea of slow reading. Not only does it fit in with my available time, but I see so many things in this book that are worth a second look and some comment or discussion (and only the first chapter, so far!). But right now I'm going to have to do some slow sleeping. So, see you all tomorrow.

Pontalba, What a fascinating article about a democratic possibility in Russian History that I never knew anything about! And V.D. Nabokov's role in it. Amazing. :shock: Great link! Many thanks.