tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3481042913102859279..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Night Train (III): Vladimir NabokovUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51506020425214488842010-05-14T08:49:22.345-07:002010-05-14T08:49:22.345-07:00How well one recalls those crows, from the long ea...How well one recalls those crows, from the long early morning rambles down from the mesa, out along the lagoon...<br /><br />The crows here are in perpetual turf-warring bickering battle with the bluejays, evidently over who shall have dominion over the great redwood tree out front (it is 104+ years old, won by a woman who lived here then, as a potted plant at the '06 World's Fair).<br /><br />The crows, of course, win out. <br /><br />They are not in residence here like the bluejays, they just seem to show up. A big shopping street down the block draws them, with heaping public garbage cans, often not emptied for days on end.<br /><br />And on the freeway feeder out front they sometimes pause to snack on road kill.<br /><br />Ah, city life. Nature red and pink in tooth and claw on grey concrete and asphalt.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-54721341760866890642010-05-14T07:41:41.822-07:002010-05-14T07:41:41.822-07:00Tom,
Great to read these three, after a (pretty g...Tom,<br /><br />Great to read these three, after a (pretty good) night's sleep, and have time to read them (Johnny still asleep in the bed beside me (time to wake him up for school), crows calling in the field out the window. . . .STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-7423375814018153182010-05-14T03:28:33.503-07:002010-05-14T03:28:33.503-07:00... well, I will concede he was talking about &quo...... well, I will concede he was talking about "fiction", there.<br /><br />Still, the sentence I cannot get out of my head is the last one in that post: <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/vladimir-nabokov-crying-wolf.html" rel="nofollow">"He was the inventor"</a>.<br /><br />Observation is observation, a secondary art in Nabokov's view; and memory is memory, a primary one for him.<br /><br />Fiction, or what he calls invention, seems to have existed somewhere beyond the two, though at times I have suspected that for him it was sometimes (as here) in the middle, like a slightly confused dog running back and forth between two masters.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65954435646044273402010-05-14T03:19:57.195-07:002010-05-14T03:19:57.195-07:00Well, Curtis, I do hope you've had a good nigh...Well, Curtis, I do hope you've had a good night's sleep, regardless.<br /><br />If so, I envy you.<br /><br />I've tried that engine driver trick, along with every other trick in the books. <br /><br />None of them has ever worked.<br /><br />About the images, I marvel at the specificity of Nabokov's memories.<br /><br />I know they were the product of long sessions of writerly mnemonic concentration.<br /><br />But, keeping in mind the lesson imparted in "Crying Wolf" (you will recall it, a few posts below this one), I have wondered whether he did not invent a detail or two here and there.<br /><br />Wondrous either way.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48003743068453537192010-05-13T18:04:38.709-07:002010-05-13T18:04:38.709-07:00It’s the most remarkable thing to read exact descr...It’s the most remarkable thing to read exact descriptions of things you’ve felt and to see images publicly that you’ve seen privately, awake or in dreams. <br /> <br />“From my bed under my brother's bunk (Was he asleep? Was he there at all?), in the semidarkness of our compartment, I watched things, and parts of things”.<br /><br />Putting myself to sleep “by the simple act of identifying myself with the engine driver” is something that’s often worked for me and I think I’ll try to do it again shortly. <br /><br />Can’t wait to read to other two entries, but they might keep me awake, which wouldn’t be good after today and in view of tomorrow.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.com