..... I am often reminded that the internet is not unlike a gigantic cosmic ballet composed of words and images.
It all began with the photo above of Vladimir Nabokov, one of my literary heros, examining a butterfly. This was on the site Scientific Illustrations, which also had a link to a New York Times article. Many people are not aware of the fact that Nabokov a literary giant, was also a poet and was the curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.
In 1939 his love of writing, words, languages and butterflies merged when he began writing 'Lolita'. And I was led to the article subtitled 'Getting schooled in the arts and sciences, or what literature has to do with lepidoptery'..
After its publication in 1958, Nabokov's Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th century literature. Many in the U.S. called it pornographic trash. However, today, Lolita is considered by many to be one of the finest novels written in the 20th century. In 1998, it came fourth in a list by the Modern Library of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th century. The name "Lolita" has even entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl.
Which leads inexorably to 'Прощай', one of the lovliest of Russian words. And a poem by Nabokov.
The most common form of saying good-bye in Russian is 'до свидания' [da svidaniya] but 'прощай' [prashchai] is always uttered softly, much like a whispered prayer. The sound of the Russian consonant 'щ' [shch] is rather difficult for many non-Slavic speakers to master, since they tend to make it rather harsh sounding. But it is indeed soft, flowing and lovely.
[And of course, the softest tongue of all, is that of a butterfly.]
SOFTEST OF TONGUES
by Vladimir Nabokov
To many things I've said the word that cheats
the lips and leaves them parted (thus: prash-chai
which means "good-bye") -- to furnished flats, to streets,
to milk-white letters melting in the sky;
to drab designs that habit seldom sees,
to novels interrupted by the din
of tunnels, annotated by quick trees,
abandoned with a squashed banana skin;
to a dim waiter in a dimmer town,
to cuts that healed and to a thumbless glove;
also to things of lyrical renown
perhaps more universal, such as love.
Thus life has been an endless line of land
receding endlessly.... And so that's that,
you say under your breath, and wave your hand,
and then your handkerchief, and then your hat.
To all these things I've said the fatal word,
using a tongue I had so tuned and tamed
that -- like some ancient sonneteer -- I heard
its echoes by posterity acclaimed.
But now thou too must go; just here we part,
softest of tongues, my true one, all my own....
And I am left to grope for heart and art
and start anew with clumsy tools of stone.
Comments