Paper, Little overdue

“Easy, you know, does it, son.”

“But the future has no such reality (as the pictured past and the perceived present possess); the future is but a figure of speech, a specter of thought.” (Nabokov 489)

A person notices a rock lying at the bottom of a creek bed; its glassy surface bounces the sun’s light through the water’s surface. They wonder how much time has elapsed for the creek’s flow to smooth the rock enough for such a refraction to occur. The person wonders if it may have fallen from a mountain during a landslide or after an aggressive flood or heavy rainfall. They wonder what carried the rock so many miles to its current location. This person does not wonder, however, what the future holds for the rock; they are stuck in the present, admiring its beauty, pondering what may have happened in the past, and are caught in its current appearance. In Vladimir Nabokov’s Transparent Things, Hugh Person confronts two major themes: the three tenses and the three forms of consciousness. Similar to the rock laying beneath the water, these themes enable Hugh to have a pictured past, bring him to his perceived present being, and shape the inevitable future that at present times is merely a specter of thought.
The premise that creates synthesis amongst the themes is the three tenses: past, present and future. These tenses go along with the stages of life as well as the conscious and un-conscious; for the many stages of life and ones cognizance throughout it determines how someone reflects on their past, behaves in the present, and views their upcoming future. “Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.” (Nabokov 489) Because people can not directly see what their future holds, they look to their past and think about things they should have done differently, or of issues that continue to haunt them in their present. A person holds a multitude of memories from their past, and the choices they made effect how they act in their present state of being. This inevitably influences the choices they will someday make that directly affect their future. If a person knew what was going to happen in the future, they could better balance their lives by not dwelling so much on the past, but instead live in, and enjoy the present.
Hugh constantly deals with issues from his past, issues that compromise his livelihood and are afflicted by irrational fears. Hugh is not able to look at the rock below the surface of the water and see its present state and function. Instead, Hugh looks at an object and notices its color, shape and imperfections: qualities that enable Hugh to lose himself in the object’s past rather than its current form. “When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, though which the past shines!” (Nabokov 489) Hugh feels awkward when he is in an unfamiliar place in life, making him constantly revert back to how things used to be. When he visits a hotel he has not been to in years, Hugh feels upset when the receptionist is not the same person, the familiar hotel room 313 is occupied, and the hallway is unrecognizable. Hugh continues to dwell on the grief that engrained one fifth of his life; the same time period he last visited the Ascot Hotel. Because Hugh focuses strongly on memories from the past, he makes the Ascot Hotel seem like a dreadful building rather than appreciating it for its purpose and function in the present. Hugh continually breaks through this tension film, and “will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish.” (Nabokov 489)
The rock that lies below the surface of the water, depending on where you stand, may not deliver the same degree of refracted light that a person might see from a different angle. Without the same level of reflection from the sun, the person may not notice the rock’s shiny coat, or worse, the beautiful rock could go completely unnoticed. Past is not the only factor that affects a person’s present being. Society, as well as different viewpoints and interiority, can strongly alter a person’s perception of reality and present time. Hugh Person does not have an optimistic view of the world, giving him tendencies to find faults and imperfections in everything that surrounds him. Some objects Hugh finds many problems with include dingy lilacs, shade-less lamps, broken umbrellas, cheap pine and faceless old pencils. (Nabokov 492) Because of his interpretation and perception of how the world is, Hugh is conditioned to see the worst in both people and his surroundings.
The people in Hugh Person’s life seem to have the same tainted pasts and flawed exteriors as the objects that surround him. Hugh is unable to view people as they exist in present time, which means he always sees their extra baggage as well as their dirty laundry. The only time that Hugh is able to live in the present, rather than thinking about the past, occurs when his father dies. Hugh does not want to be troubled with sending his fathers body home, and suggests to “get rid of the dreadful object practically at once.” (Nabokov 498) In this instance, Hugh does not sink into the history of his father’s body, but instead sees it as merely a carcass that must be disposed of. Bodies have scars, wrinkles and evidence of existence, all of which allows the past to shine though their outer appearances. However, Hugh chooses to view the body from a different angle: not as his father, but as a carcass that needs to be disposed of. Rather than dwelling on the past as he usually does, Hugh finds himself standing in the present moment, letting go of memories attached to the body of “Henry Emery Person, our Person’s father,” who “might be described as a well-meaning, earnest, dear little man, or as a wretched fraud, depending on the angle of light and the position of the observer.” (Nabokov 498)
Out of the three tenses, future is the least discussed in Transparent Things. For Hugh, the future is only a “figure of speech” or a “specter of thought.” He is able to grasp the past because of the pictures he has created inside his memory palace, and is able to perceive what is happening in the present moments; however, Hugh does not look too far into the future for he has no image or recollection of what it will be like. One of the only statements Hugh says regarding future throughout the entire story is that “every task in life should be brought to an end, like completing that road above Witt, where they had a house, a chalet de luxe, but had to trudge up to the Drakonita cableway until the new road had been finished.” (Nabokov 505) Because Hugh knows that every task in life must come to an end, he is aware that changes will be made in the future. For example: Hugh knows he will always finish a book, he knows he wants to climb the mountain that caused him such embarrassment, and he knows that eventually, like everyone else in his life, he too will die. However, even though Hugh understands that everything will eventually come to an end, he is unaware of where the end will lie.
Hugh harnesses dark fears that consist of both the future and the past. During the days, Hugh projects his feelings of fear and low self-esteem onto the objects and people surrounding him. But each day will come to an end, bringing Hugh to face the fact that everything, including daytime, always comes to an end. The end of daytime means the beginning of nighttime, and the beginning of nighttime forces a person to leave the world of the conscious and surrender their thoughts and feelings to the bodies subconscious. The “low sun’s funeral,” (Nabokov 506) does not only refer to the death and end of a day, but the birth of darkness that would soon blanket the entire earth, causing Hugh once again to battle his fears of sleep, and the black world that surrounds it. Like the past, future and present, Hugh is also shaped by his mental patterns, bringing him closer then further away from reality and present time, with each setting or rising of the sun.
Sleeping, dreaming and being awake are three forms of consciousness, or the un-conscious, found throughout Transparent Things. While daytime and consciousness are generally seen as positive and symbolize the present, the idea of darkness and sleeping brings forth Hugh’s problematic nocturnal fears, which makes sleep become a habitual problem. “Ever since childhood…the problem was twofold. He was obliged, sometimes for hours, to woo the black automation with an automatic repetition of some active image-that was one trouble. The other referred to the quasi-insane state into which sleep put him, once it did come. He could not believe that decent people had the sort of obscene and absurd nightmares which shattered his night and continued to tingle throughout the day.” (Nabokov 527) The problems Hugh harnesses with going to sleep are a direct correlation with not being able to control his own thoughts. Once his brain slips away into the abyss of his subconscious, Hugh opens himself up to seeing the unending awfulness of his deepest thoughts; thoughts he is usually able to suppress while awake and in control. Knowing what his brain is capable of conjuring during sleep, Hugh dreads what the dark symbolizes and instead is restless until the first sliver of sunlight enters his room.
The abyss, which is also known as Hugh’s subconscious, is a scary place for him to visit, for he has learned that he has “destructive urges” in his dreams. These destructive tensions and urges are those that have been stored up since infancy, making his past, present and future desires the main storyline for the dreams Hugh will fade into once night falls. “Hugh need not be ashamed of them. In fact, at puberty sexual desire arises as a substitute for the desire to kill, which one normally fulfills in one’s dreams; and insomnia is merely the fear of becoming aware in sleep of one’s unconscious desires for slaughter and sex.” (Nabokov 531) Hugh is already aware enough of his not-so-happy past, and making himself aware of what his present subconscious feels and desires for himself and the future, will only make him more unhappy. Also, knowing that his friends and acquaintances do not have similar dreams makes Hugh feel even more like an outcast. “He could not believe that decent people had the sort of obscene and absurd nightmares which shattered his night and continued to tingle throughout the day. Neither the incidental accounts of bad dreams reported by friends nor the case histories elucidations, presented anything like the complicated vileness of his almost nightly experience.” (Nabokov 527)
Everything must come to an end, death is inevitable, and sleeping without an active subconscious creates an illusion of what death and the future holds. In the end, Hugh determines his own fate. If only Hugh had looked at his life and society from a different point of view, he may have been able to enjoy the present, and appreciate the beauty that surrounded him rather than notice the scars and evidence from histories past.
“Person hated the sight and the feel of his feet. They were uncommonly graceless and sensitive. Even as a grown man he avoided looking at them when undressing.” (Nabokov 548) Every time Hugh glances down at his own feet he becomes aware of all the steps he has taken, the places he is currently standing, and the places his feet will take him in the future. They are reminders of where he has been, and where he will go. If Hugh had only walked a different path, then he may have been able to escape his fears, noticing the rock reflecting brightly from below the tension surface of the small creek.
A person notices a strange figure lying at the bottom of a creek bed; its coarse, uneven surfaces consisting of fabric, hair and decomposing skin make strange shapes and colors reflect through the water’s surface. They wonder how much time has elapsed for the creek’s flow to slowly deteriorate the body and the clothes attached to it. The person wonders if the body was put there by a criminal or carried by a strong flood or if the body had simply drowned on the spot. They wonder what carried the body so many miles to its current location. This person does not wonder, however, what the future holds for the body; they are stuck in the present, knowing a life has ended, pondering what may have happened in the past to cause the bodies current appearance and demise. Hugh Person would never notice the beautiful rock that lies next to the decaying body. Nor does he find beauty in objects where the exterior suggests a rough past. Instead, Hugh Person confronts the themes of tenses and forms of consciousness by exposing fears and pessimisms that have a direct correlation to his past, present and where his future will take him. In Vladimir Nabokov’s Transparent Things, Hugh is shaped strongly by his pictured past, which brings him to his perceived present being, and shapes the inevitable future to come. If only Hugh had glanced at the riverbed from a different view, he may have seen the beauty of a polished rock, and appreciated the small refraction of sunlight twinkling from beneath the surface.

FINAL Thoughts

I tried to get my final thoughts for this class written down sooner, but I had that little confrontation with the captive woman this morning at my house, putting my daily schedule back a few hours. Like every other Sexson class I have taken, I find myself constantly writing down different quotes and facts, ones that sometimes may just be an MS original one liner, but those scribbles in my notebook continue to be the most important things I will remember from my college experience. This semester has been a rough one for me, and 21 credits is not something that I would like to do again, making my blogs and participation less frequent, for I have been completely overwhelmed. However, the Nabokov class was so intruiging for looking at everyones blogs in class and what they discovered about our different readings made each book come alive in a different way than the first time I read through them. Some of the blogs and discoveries created somewhat of an intimidation factor, giving me authorial anxiety in publishing my own blogs, for I did not at first pick up on the different patterns of colors or repition of names. Regardless to say, I do not think after this semester I will ever be able to read a book the same. This class has made me notice things that I had not noticed before, making me not see the text as a transparent object, but something that is much deeper. Nabokov books are something that I will continue to open up from time to time, just to see if I will pick up on something new that I was not aware of before. While Sexson says the cats are out of the bag, I still feel like maybe a few remain.

Group Presentations

I was impressed and entertained, like I am in all of Dr. Sexsons group presentations, for we are given complete control to do what we want as groups, which usually turns out to be rather enjoyable. It amazes me each time how every group presentation is always extremely different, creative, yet thought provoking. I liked the skit, comparing Lolita to children's fairy tales and the big bad wolf, even though it was rather creepy when the wolf and humbert were drinking vodka while watching the young children play at the park. I also enjoyed group 5 (I think thats the one) where each person retold their stories as a different character, and robert lumis' rather impressive poem. It was amazing how that group wrote their parts separately but in the end it all came together perfectly. And our group video was fun to make, and I still cant beleive how well Adam edited it. I guess my favorite part about these presentations is how each group wants to be creative and entertaining, making the MS projects more entertaining than presentations found in any other class.

whos to blame?

I found this on Tant Mieux's website:
For me this passage below was almost disturbing. This person read all of Nabokovs lesser known books before reading Lolita, and found it to be suggesting that young children really are sexual beings. This idea disturbed me. No child, no matter what a person may think, are sexually aware at the age of the nymphettes in Lolita, and this man is almost standing up for the people that can see this sexual side of the young. He claims that Hubert was not completely to blame, for Lolita was just a sexual being who was dressed up in innocence to hide her true cover. While she may have had some sexual tendancies, as a young child, she was not aware of her sexuality as Humbert had initially saw her. And by photographers photographing young girls with deep looks on their faces and a dress partially draped off the shoulder, does not suggest that the girl is trying to tempt the photographer. "but to deny that children are sexual beings is to turn one's back on our very nature" shows how this person uses these different stories and photographs to maybe support his own nature, that may strongly differ from many others. While his view on nymphettes is interesting, I found myself a little taken aback by this. Part of his blog is included below:



For as long as I can remember, I have loved the work of Nabokov. I remember reading Pale Fire and then Ada or Ardour when i was still a teenager - heavy stuff for that age, or so it seemed to me. While most readers had started or been introduced to Nabokov with his book and later his film, Lolita (with Sue Lyons and Charles Mason), i had started with the lesser known works, and eventually led up to Lolita, often considered the more perverse of his books and to some, an advertisment for incest; this poor little Lolita who is the victim of our so-called antagonist Humbert Humbert. Watch the newer version with Jeremy Irons and you'll see that Lolita isn't entirely the victim here, as anyone who read the book carefully could tell you. We're so quick to judge, and yes, incest is always wrong. But what Lolita really tells us is that children, no matter how hard we try to neuter them and turn them into innocent fairies with angel wings, as was so common in the Victorian era, will always be sexual and sensual beings. This is not an advertisement for incest by any stretch, but to deny that children are sexual beings is to turn one's back on our very nature. It is entirely possible and even likely, that a child can be sensual and even sensual without wanting any kind of touch or relationship. To break that pact, to pursue a relationship, is to traumatize and rape the child. Of this we can be clear. Lewis Carroll, nee Charles Dodgson, author of Alice 's Adventures Underground (later named Alice in Wonderland), is often compared to Nabokov (in contemporary work). We were told "little girls held a strange fascination for Carroll." Few know of Carroll's work as a photographer. That he was one of the preeminent photographers of the Victorian era, alongside Julia Margaret Cameron and O. Rejlander. Who can forget the picture of Alice Liddell, the model for Alice in Wonderland, posing as the "Little Beggar Girl," the jaunty thrust of her hip, the dress slipping off of her shoulder, the smoldering look in her eye. Carroll, unlike his contemporaries, would not sugar coat his models. .Even Nabokov, who much admired Dodgson and translated into Russian Alice in Wonderland, accuses him of "Nympholepsy", adding almost jealously, "he got away with it." Nabokov called Dodgson's models, "half-dressed and bedraggled nymphets," referring to the models that lie about languidly in Dodgson's photographs, their poses clearly suggestive. Really it is only in our backward glance that we find some "evidence" we say of Nabokov's nympholepsy or Dodgson's perversion. It is widely known that the Victorians were preoccupied with mythologizng children, rendering them as innocent water nymphs, frolicking jollily along the shoreline, floating in the air as cherubs, or even as full-breasted women strangely lacking in pubic hair. In this Cult of the Child, children (and women, for that matter) were sexless, yet suggestive. Their sexuality was decorated with the props of innocence, flowers and wings, halos and purifying baths, promoting, as Bram Dijkstra put it, "a genre of child pornography that disguised itself as a tribute to the ideal of innocence." (195, Idols of Perversity) Children were presented provocatively, but in a form that was acceptable. Still, if you strip away the props and the pretense from these airbrushed and dilute images, a more perverse, more fetishistic rendering is revealed.

photos

The caption below this picture states that it came from the Nabokov estate, which I found rather bizarre because I always found, like in Speak Memory, that Nabokov thought the pictures spoke for themselves. However, this picture is not as thought provoking as ones that he included in his Speak Memory book. In those, he had elements of the past, like his mother waving out a window or a baby carriage without him in it, or he had photos of himself sitting at a desk with many objects behind him. Strangly, this photo has only a boring blank wall behind him, making the viewer forced to just look at him. Nabokov is younger in this picture, and it is amazing the scribbles on this, for I wonder if Nabokov himself did this to give the photograph more substance? The butterflies still a present thought on him mind, and the lines above his head suggesting that his head was exploding even though he sat in an empty room.. maybe he wants the viewer of this photograph to think deeper as well. However, the caption on this photo could be wrong, and the drawings and scribbles on this photo could just be from some random person.

a thought provoking quote

I was reading an article on Transparent things, for I have had so much difficulty with it, it is nice to see another persons point of view. I found this quote from Alexandrov that I found interesting:

In his fiction, as Vladimir E. Alexandrov notes, Nabokov often used analogies “between sleep and earthly life on the one hand, and wakefulness and a transcendent world on the other,”thus showing that he incorporated the possibility of an afterlife into his own philosophy. This is also expressed in a passage of “The Art of Literature and Commonsense”: “That human life is but the first installment of the serial soul and that one’s individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution, becomes something more than an optimistic conjecture, and even more than a matter of religious faith, when we remember that only commonsense rules immortality out.”In the context of the essay, in which Nabokov makes a case against “commonsense,” his belief in immortality and an afterlife is given a place alongside his ethics and aesthetics.

I the the idea of sleep and earthly life on one side, and wakefulness and transcendent word on the other. Its almost saying that his dreams and unconcious state are more typical than how he feels while he is away. While he sleeps, he is opening his every day feelings and thoughts, maybe even dreams of the pass, but while he is awake and aware, he is in his transcendent world, opening himself up to superiority and transcending the universe. While he is awake, Nabokov is able to write and exceed in his abilities in an infinite way.

COPS

So I just woke up to a very crazy event, it is similar to Lolita, but instead of dealing with Nymphetes, you may call this woman a Wrinklette. I'm going to start from the beginning of her story.

Her name is Betty Joe, from Los Angeles California. Earlier this year, she went to a church retreat where she met a man who was really attractive. This man took an immediate liking to Betty Joe, told her he loved her, and that she should move to Montana, the most beautiful state in the world. So last Sunday, Betty Joe packed up her house, even though her daughter told her not to, and took a Greyhound to the Big Sky State. According to the story she gave the cops, Betty Joe arrived to a loving man who took really good care of her at first. However, when she tried to call her children and friends a couple of days ago to let them know she was safe, she was supprised to see that every number she dialed was a wrong number. This was when her suspicions arose. She confronted the man and asked why her phone didnt work, and he told her that now she was with him, nothing else mattered, so he changed all the numbers in her phone, to lose complete communication, and start a new life completely rid of its past. Betty Joe began to get upset, so the man duct taped her to a chair, then proceeded to duct tape the doors and block off windows so she could not get out. He did not have a house line so she was unable to call the cops.

Apparently this behavior went on for a few days, making Betty Joe more and more nervous of this situation. She told the cops that yesterday was the tipping point and she knew that she had to escape. She overheard the man, who loved her so much he didnt want to share her with anyone, talking to his friend on the phone about purchasing a bunch of guns for his house. After she heard that, she knew she would have to escape. This morning, when the man left the house, she pryed open the back door that was blocked by an old fridge, and ran down the block knocking on every door she could.

This is where our house gets involved. I saw the lady standing on the street corner, looking like she was waiting for someone, so I didnt think anything of it. After I got into my house, I heard a knock on the door. Over and over. It was the lady. We answered it, and she was shaking, looked like she was running from something that had just hurt her. We didnt let her in the house, but my sister called the cops and I made her some tea to warm up. When the cops got here, she told them that whole disturbing story.

I seriously feel like this captive thing is an ongoing theme. From reading lolita, to watching criminal minds, to poor Betty Joe. Regardless, this was not a boring start to the day, and I felt it necessary to share.

The Song

Here's the address for listening to the Song:

http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569466659668244

( I dont know how to add an html into a blog, so sorry for not posting a link )

Lyrics

It turns out Transparent Things is not only a story by Nabokov, it is also a song written by Fujiya and Miyagi. I read the Lyrics and was amazed by some more patterns that exist both in the song lyrics and the story. For example: "grains of pear blue boxing." The color blue, which some has found to be a pattern this semester. Also, pear blue boxing? An object with its descriptive color, like in transparent things, Apple-green, cherry-red etc.. I also got into the lyrics "I look through transparent things and I feel okay." If a person can just look through something, and not into it, into its past, they are not getting lost within it, making them think harder than one usually would. (I dont know.. maybe the songwriters arent this deep... maybe they are just referring to the obvious transparent things, such as a window. Or maybe they are deep and are referring to looking through something transparent such as "looking through the veil." If there is a veil, a lot is not seen, making one feel better?)

HERE ARE THE LYRICS:

Litter box, professional non-smokers
pricks and a replica kits of red and black yeah
cyclists should write and designate it
Passing cold zone tonight on the pavement

Two by two European language schools
they got the same college rocks
sex on their backs yeah
Uh oh, I know
they got the same college rocks sex, oh

I look through transparent things and I feel okay [3x]

Gift box, singer songwriters
and symmetrical ticks and grains of pear blue boxes
So so I know

I look through transparent things and I feel okay [3x]

Litter box, professional non-smokers
and symmetrical ticks and grains of pear blue boxing

I look through transparent things and I feel okay [6x]
I look through transparent things, I feel okay

Transparency:

Out of all the Nabokov we have read, I have taken a strong liking to Transparent Things. I think that there are so many things that can be overlooked while reading, or discovered only after your second attempt through. I just really like how Nabokov has depicted transparency, and instead of just looking at something, one must look harder to see through it, and see into its past. I believe Hugh's name has much significance in this book too. Hugh Persons. Nobody special. No Special talents. Just a person. Just looking at Hugh, one may only think, hes an ordinary person. However, that is just by looking at him without "sinking into the very history" of him.

"When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines!" (Nabokov 489)

I have read over this quote so many times. At first, I thought Nabokov was saying not to think too hard about the object you are looking at... that's what novices do. Unless one wants to use a pen to write, and only write, they must not start thinking about how the pen came to be, because then the pens purpose is not to write, but to entertain ones mind. If the pen is for writing, one must only think that, so the pen stays at that level. I feel this is the same with Hugh. If everyone looks at Hugh as just a person, so he stays at the level of the moment, then people are not forced to sink into his history, and see the past that has shaped him into the person he has become.

Many things have this same quality in the story. For example, Hugh does not seem to be the happiest of people. So when he looks at objects, they begin to take on shapes of his emotion as well. "A dreadful building" and "the blank bluish wall gliding down". The dreadful building was just the appearance, and when he looks through it he begins to notice deeper aspects of the building. Like the blank bluish wall, maybe saying the wall brings no emotions because of its un-interesting blankness? Did he call the wall blank, because the wall's past is pretty uneventful, just a long corridor where people walk through to start or end their day? The pen got so much attention for it has a purpose. It can create thoughts and emotions, and while it has a history, one must not dwell on it for the pen must stay in the present so the hand may create the now.

I dont know. Its weird. Everytime I go through Transparent Things I begin thinking about different random thoughts, thoughts that I have a hard time getting out into words. Maybe im looking to far into it, but I dont think so.. Nabokov writes like he plays chess.. hard problems that one must solve.

coincidences:

I googled Versex Palace to see if it was a real place... its funny how many coincidences came up. There was an article on Shakespeare that had both Versex and Palace in it, however, they were not connected, but still the relationship to shakespeare was a 1 in 3 coincidence. After that, I just googled versex and a lot of inapropriate websites came up, but the majority of them were "Ver Sex Drive Gratis" ... coincidence of versex and gratis? "I am an all-around genius.' By a coincidence worthy of that other genius..." (507) it truly is amazing all of the coincidences we see throughout Nabokov novels and their relations to many different things. It is also amazing the connections found on random google websites.. how could Nabokov have known this? I then googled the word "hullo" to see what could possibly come up, and websites about greiving and loss came up for some reason, which I found as another coincidence for Hugh seems pesimistic about life, grieves for the past, and his father.. so many coincidences.

Presentation Group 4

Thanks again to Adam for doing all the editing in our film and creating an excellent final cut. Yesterday in class was the first time I had seen the entire video and I was very impressed!

Anyways, the project was really fun to finally put together. The group met multiple times discussing different ideas and plans for our movie, but the final idea was not put in stone until our last group meeting before filming. The final idea was to create a film that was based upon the relationship between the author and reader. With Nabokov, reading his works can be like trying to solve a difficult chess problem, one that must be tried over and over again until one can truly get it. In the beginning of our film, we had scenes of Nabokov and the reader, as well as a chess board, to show the direct relationship between all three elements. We start with Nabokov writing on the notecards, and moving a chess piece to start the problem. This idea was that Nabokov beginning writing was like creating a problem that would later have to be solved by the reader, which is why Nabokov also moved a chess piece on the board in this same scene. Then, as the reader opened her book, the chess piece moved itself, showing the idea that her "problem" had just began as well. This idea is a little tricky to get out in words, so I hope I explained it right, and that is helps out a bit. The acting scenes from our film were moments from the novels read that group memebers felt stood out, especially with our theme being chess. The king going down into the trap door seemed almost like a jigsaw yesterday after watching it in class,which I found very fitting. It almost seemed like a "problem" for the King to get into Sam's basement ;) as well as being very entertaining. (great job joan!) All in all, it was a very fun group project to work on and the final movie turned out better than my original expectations.

transparent things

After reading, then re-reading Transparent Things, I began to notice many different patterns that seemed to fit with the idea of transparency and the different objects and people in the short story. The idea of transparency goes beyond just looking directly at an object, but being able to see through it.

Until reading this story, I do not believe that I ever looked at an object, such as a pencil, and wondered about the complete history of it. (Nabokov would disagree about most novices on this subject matter) "When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines!" (489) I would not classify myself as a novice, because when I look at any object, I'm usually in the present mindset, rather than trying to figure out its makeup, history or past experiences in life.. (if objects could be looked at as even having any past experiences) I find it bizarre that Nabokov wants a person to look at an object and see it as having a history, but also be careful to not break the tension on the surface, for one could get lost in their own childish thoughts about all the different qualities and histories rather than just remaining in the now.

If a person sinks beneath the surface, then they are not looking at something for how it really is in it's present state, and my sinking past the tension, one is getting lost in a moment. Is Nabokov trying to suggest that one must not get lost in their thoughts for the answer is always obvious at the top? If one can stay on the surface rather than getting lost amongst the others that are only able to look up at you through the water, then the person on the surface is above everyone else? Does being on the surface of the tension make everyone apparent rather than transparent, to those that have to look through everything? (I found this whole idea rather confusing, and ive gone over many different times whether or not Nabokov wanted, or did not want people to look into the history of the pencil, rather than just writing with it....)

Anyways, each chapter that I read had different patterns within it, that did not particularly carry on to the ones that followed. Chapter 2 of the book, we are introduced to Hugh Person, and we are also introduced to many 'things' that did not seem to have histories explained (like Nabokov did in speak memory with his descriptions of his pictures) but instead he only pointed out the apparent qualities of these 'things'. The pattern that I found in this chapter was a repetitive theme of color+relatable object. For example: gray stone, brown wood- both objects that one would already know their colors, however, he pointed out the obvious.. Also: Cherry-Red, Apple Green, Grassgreen, Skyblue, blank-bluish wall, apple-green again etc. Every time a color was mentioned in the chapter, there was always a relatable object right next to it. It was always about the appearance of things, rather than deeper thoughts. Like the receptionist- blond bun, pretty neck.

I only noticed this pattern in chapter 2 after I read chapter 3, and was no longer reading about green leaves or blue water... a new pattern had arrived. This chapter I called the noun and adjective chapter because it was a little more descriptive than just the obvious color-object pattern, and dove a little deeper into the well-being of an object. This chapter was also more depressing for all the adjectives used to describe these objects were not what I would consider light hearted ones. For example: shadeless lamp, broken umbrella, faceless old pencil, cheap pine, dingy lilac, plumbeous plum, moist clay, pressed caviar, fleecy fat-giver, crystalized carbon, felled pine, solid pencil. This pattern I noticed because it was not in ch 2. It seemed as though Hugh, who was explained in a nice way as a tidy-man, was only noticing the imperfections and negative aspects of objects in the room that surrounded him.

Chapter 4 continued the patter of material objects with grim descriptions, such as old stairs, drap and cheap, pale tables, blocks of blackness, debility and despair, lone greif, evasive matter, wrestled the venitian blind, wet pavement, badly folded, disgusted silence, scorn, wrenched umbrella, discourtesy etc... however, this pattern differed from the last for it dealt more with his emotions at the moment, rather that the present state of the objects themselves. He did not like where he was, and his description of this place strongly suggested that.

Then in chapter 5 Nabokov repeats the pattern of color, but like the last chapter, he uses color when talking about a person, not himself, but about women. And every time color was mentioned, there was always a direct correlation between himself and a woman. -- Blonde in black, green figuring of a female, brown curtain (when half drawn disclosed elegant legs), transparent black of a female...

"Hugh, too, was twenty-two and had always been harrowed by coincident symbols." (497) Im not sure if all these differnt patterns I found were on purpose or not, however, they all stood out to me for different reasons for they never really completely followed to the next chapter. Using colors to explain both objects, then women.. then using adjectives of objects to explain both the poor conditions of both things and his personal mental state at the time. The ideal of a dreadful obejct carried on to later in the story when he was referring to his fathers dead body- he was looking at it at the surface, calling the body an object, rather than looking at it in a transparent light seeing it as his father who had a past and life. By looking at things just from the surface, one avoids diving deeping into thought, and avoiding getting lost into the abyss, if only for a moment.

Anyways- getting back to the first quote- "transparent things of which the past shines..." I enjoyed how Hugh only gave us the physical descriptions of objects, but after thinking about these objects in the story in a transparent light, their past began to create itself in my head while reading, making me read this story as Nabokov would call a novice- but maybe thats what he wanted.