audio books out of context #2

this is the second post in the audio books out of context series. posts in this series premier exclusively on the ragbag every ¾(π²√5)² hours. the next post is scheduled for wide release on november 29th, 2009 at 4:53 (eastern standard time). by that time, the original of laura will have dropped online and in bookstores. should you have attempted to read it, please keep in mind that nabokov’s ghost will most likely attempt to eat your soul.

__

the previous post in the series was excerpted (rather rudely) from pillars of the earth by ken follet (1989). the proprietress of the alphalemon blog was the first to correctly identify this—for that, i bestow upon her my most sincere congratulations.

jim, vlad, tommy & raynor: a cosmic link

last thursday, i posted a map that vladimir nabokov used when teaching joyce to thomas pynchon. an anonymous operative in dublin axed me where he could get a higher-rez image and i promised that i would look into the matter. this is how my quest starts. how it ends is with me pawing through nabokov’s original papers in the inner-most sanctum of the new york public library. here is the in-between stuff:

part the first: a map quest

the original map is housed in the morgan collection of the nypl. since i was going to be in the city this weekend with some time to kill, i thought i would try and see how close that i could come to getting my greasy mitts on a facsimilie of the map.

i have a long and sordid history of infiltrating libraries and figured that the nypl would be lemon pound cake. it wasn’t. it took 3 levels of access (for which i had no ready documentation) and a lot of paperwork. ultimately the decision came down to the morgan curator, donna barker. my access would be based entirely upon her assessment of 1. how legit that i was (i am not legit) and 2. the reasons for my wanting to see nabokov’s unpublished papers (a whim? scorching curiosity?).

after a lot of blah-blah-blahing i was admitted into room 444. donna then reviewed my paperwork and grilled me for fifteen minutes before finally acquiescing. within the hour i received a folder containing not facsimiles of nabokov’s papers but the real deal—coffee ringed, besmudged, finger-printed, mothball-scented* handwritten notes of one of the giants of western literature!

part the second: notes on his notes

i have handled highly revered objects before. i have made small talk with authors that i admire at book signings. but i have never lost my shit the way i did when a librarian dropped a big folder with nabokov’s personal writings into my lap and told me to go to town. after composing myself, i was able to make a few notes. here are some (in bullet form for ease of reading):

• there were actually 3 different versions of the maps all with mostly the same information. each was on standard letter-sized typing paper.
• nabokov’s handwriting was meticulous and bold with an occasional flourish. i was delighted to see that at points he lapsed into [what appeared to be] sütterlinschrift (seen especially in his medial s’s).
• the maps themselves were not very different from standard ones like this and this.
• nabokov calculates that bloom walks 5 miles throughout the day.
• for reasons not readily understandable, he drew england about 1,000 feet off the coast of dublin.
• while i was sifting through personal notes written by one of the top writers of the twentieth century, sitting in a room containing original manuscripts and love letters by the likes of woolf, pound, yeats, kerouac and james, the curator was reading a patrick o’brian novel.
• in the end, donna would NOT let me photocopy anything. she said that i would first need to get the permission of dmitri nabokov. i joked that dmitiri would probably oblige given his latest decision regarding his father’s literary estate. this joke did not go over so well.
• dmitiri however, failed to prevent me from taking notes and i WAS able to recreate the whole map on my own little scrap of paper. perhaps in 500 years, some pesky hoverboard-riding blogger might con his way into the new nypl so as to catch a quick peak of the raynor/nabokov/joyce map. or perhaps it will wind up as trash and a hobo will use it to toilet train his golden retreiver. only time will tell.

*yes, i sniffed it.

nabokov maps ulysses

In 1969, Nabokov told an interviewer, “Instead of perpetuating the pretentious nonsense of Homeric, chromatic, and visceral chapter headings, instructors should prepare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s intertwining itineraries clearly traced.” Nabokov drew just such a map as part of his lecture notes for Ulysses. via

nabokov? joyce? maps? drawings? this image is a burrito of all my favourite things (note: joyce is the guacamole in this metaphor). would you not have donated a litre of your own spinal fluid to audit this lecture‽ added bonus: you would have been able to pass notes to thomas pynchon!

know this as well: nabokov and joyce actually met eachother once in berlin in 1937. the hungarian national football team figured prominently in that encounter.

for wunderkammer: a karner blue butterfly (a rare lepidoptera species that was first discovered by vladimir nabokov)

nabokov reads the first lines of lolita in both english and russian.

via