/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18315997]

How would you guys describe his style? I have never red something like Lolita in style, it's so rich, symbolic, so fantastic (with all the analogies and poetry inherent to the prose) and, yet, so raw.
I would love to read more material written in this style, Even better, i would love to be able to write in this manner.

[Anonymous No.18316008]

He was even writing while he was driving, that’s dedication to your craft.

[Anonymous No.18316011]

>>18315997
His writing is Silver

[Anonymous No.18316018]

>>18316008
KEK.

[Anonymous No.18316029]

>>18315997
>like Lolita in style
Jannies!

[Anonymous No.18316041]

purple

[Anonymous No.18316074]

>>18315997

[Anonymous No.18316096]

>>18316011
Who's gold, then?
>>18316074
Amazing, thanks.

[Anonymous No.18316104]

>>18315997
Aristocratic

[Anonymous No.18316107]

>>18315997
nabokov, when he hits his mid-to-late period stride, is never ever boring. and i think that's the highest compliment you can give a novelist

[Anonymous No.18316115]

>>18315997
It’s clinical like a sterile dentists office.

[Anonymous No.18316145]

>>18316115
I've seen a lot of criticisms of Nabokov, but this is the very first time I've seen someone with the gall to call him "sterile."

[Anonymous No.18316154]

>>18315997
>symbolic
If you're reading any symbols they're your own creation. Nabokov vehemently hated symbols, metaphors, allegories, etc. His works are deep dives into esoteric human beings. Nothing more, noting less.

[Anonymous No.18316162]

>>18315997
wannabe Proust

[Anonymous No.18316179]

>>18315997
Nabokov: An author for young boys, to be forgotten in adulthood. Exceedingly boring and overrated.

[Anonymous No.18316188]

>>18316179
Quite the opposite. Go back to your japanese cartoons.

[Anonymous No.18316254]

>>18316145
I don't think it's completely unwarranted and it's even been a criticism leveled at him by other authors.
In Invitation To A Beheading, I can kinda see what they're talking about. Sometimes the flowery and witty prose can be at the expence of genuine emotion

[Anonymous No.18316265]

>>18316179
KEK, i got it.
>>18316188
Fucking dumb shit.
Read it:
http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations

>Borges, Jorge Luis: A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. A man of infinite talent.
>Chesterton, G. K.: A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.

[Anonymous No.18316268]

>>18316074
good post, esp last paragraph.

[Anonymous No.18316269]

He writes like he’s making pottery or the sort of fine plateware you might find in mid-twentieth century American home in upstate New York (if that home has a pre-teen daughter).

[Anonymous No.18316424]

You lot really are out here sucking his dick.

His books are boring. I say this unironically. I tried to read lolita, but couldn't exceed halfway through. I tried to get into luzhan defense and glory, and felt the same things. Theyre just so... melodramatic, really.

Not sure why

[Anonymous No.18316526]

>>18316424
>Theyre just so... melodramatic
What do you mean by melodramatic?

[Anonymous No.18316530]

>>18316526
It's just like, heh... you know man... the way it like, you know... uh... heh, you know what I mean.

[Anonymous No.18316595]

>>18316526
>>18316526
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1268631-lolita

Literally everything here is annoying as fuck, for instance. Too many overly elaborate descriptions for being horny.

I stopped reading the Luzhan Defense in the first few chapters, in what I remember was a paragraph that had a little girl eating a green apple. A young boy merely entered a street after running off, and the book took itself to be filled with the overly descriptive details of him... crossing a street.

Maybe im not one for purple prose. But it can truly be something beautiful when it's emotional instead of describing something mundane (horniness is not an emotion, sadly.)

[Anonymous No.18316602]

>>18316595
>Maybe im not one for purple prose
Consider the possibility that you're not one for actually understanding what the fuck purple purpose even is.

[Anonymous No.18316749]

>>18316424
>You lot really are out here sucking his dick.
How hard was it for you to resist the urge to use the word "y'all"?
For the love of God, just go back

[Anonymous No.18316768]

>>18316749
>>18316602
Cocksuckers

[Anonymous No.18316822]

>>18316074
great post

[Anonymous No.18316824]

>>18316096
Gold I would give to older, more statesmanlike or religiously ornate prose, for example Gibbon & Browne. My intention here is not to ascribe inferior value to silver, it's more a synesthetic attribution. Most people only read Lolita from his oeuvre, so there's a likely bias towards the kind of red/gold desertlike "Haze" complex. My brain might just work in a retarded way, but I hope anyone who's read Ada & Invitation to a Beheading know the moonlike, metallic gleam I'm talking about.

[Anonymous No.18316833]

His prose is like a sweating jukebox

[Anonymous No.18316887]

>>18316595
>But it ["purple" prose] can truly be something beautiful when it's emotional instead of describing something mundane
I fundamentally don't agree with this. The magic of Nabokov is precisely in how he turns the mundane into something enchanting. There is a passage in "Pnin" where he describes the way a puddle of rainwater reflects the last few bits of street light. And it's just so beautiful, even though it's not an event that had to be included in the novel at all.

[Anonymous No.18316914]

>>18316768
>NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST ENJOY GOOD WRITING!!!!! WHAT ABOUT THE OWN VOICERINOS????? BOOKS IS SUPPOSE TO BE FO ERRYWUN!!!!

[Anonymous No.18316947]

>>18316424
It depends. Some of his books are really great like lolita, pale fire, despair or transparent things while others are boring and gay like luzhan defense or glory or ada.

[Anonymous No.18317711]

>>18316041
mandatory newfag spotted

[Anonymous No.18317749]

>>18316424
>reddit spacing

[Anonymous No.18317812]

>>18316154
>If you're reading any symbols they're your own creation.
so when he writes "look at this tangle of thorns" on the first page of lolita that's not in any way symbolic but rather a literal invitation to observe an actual thornbush? big if true. where is this literal, non-symbolic thornbush located? i wouldn't want to read the novel all wrong.

[Anonymous No.18317832]

>>18315997
Overwritten, latinate, self-knowingly plastic.

[Anonymous No.18317835]

>>18316424
1) reddit spacing
2) >You lot really are out here
3) >but couldn't exceed halfway through
Please go back to r3ddit

[Anonymous No.18317843]

>>18315997
He's the Purple King .

[Anonymous No.18317863]

>>18316154
How can you refuse to write in symbols and allegories but still be deeply esoteric? Do you understand the words you’re using or choose them at random?

[Anonymous No.18317878]

>>18317863
look up the meaning of the word "esoteric," retard.

[Anonymous No.18317884]

>>18317878
I suggest you do the same

[Anonymous No.18317890]

>>18317884
>: of special, rare, or unusual interest
>deep dive into esoteric human beings
how dumb do you feel right now?

[Anonymous No.18317897]

>>18317884
I wouldn't describe Nabokov's characters as "esoteric", care to explain what you mean?

[Anonymous No.18317904]

>>18317897
>hubert humbert
>not of special, rare, or unusual interest

[Anonymous No.18317916]

>>18317890
> designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone
There you go, you stupid fuck. Next time use a real dictionary and not a bumfuck internet one

[Anonymous No.18317932]

>>18317916
i don't even know what to say to you honestly. such a dumb hill to choose to die on and i don't think i have the heart to do it

[Anonymous No.18317947]

>>18317904
Correct, he's not interesting, many men are like him. Now what?

[Anonymous No.18317972]

>>18317947
now we agree to disagree while i internally cleanse myself of the impurity of having voluntarily interacted with a retard

[Anonymous No.18317992]

>>18316074
Perfectly sums up why I think Nabokov is trash.

[Anonymous No.18318051]

>>18317972
God forbid you refuted him by pointing out what is special, rare, or interesting about the character. If you cannot back up your claims you are on the same level as the retards you despise and actively contribute to the worsening quality of this board. Except your crime is greater because they are genuine fools and you are guilty of sloth.

[Anonymous No.18318055]

the prose i find similar to xavier renegade angels quippings. its overflowing with passion, ridiculousness and puns. i think what seperates him from other purple shit is he makes a little story out of every digression and description. its rarely obvious or boring like >>18316107 said.

>>18316265
i thought everyone knew it
>>18316154
i think he disliked works that were purely alegories for something external to the work but definitely not symbols. butterflies, chess and squirrells all play thematic roles. hell, you cant say insterting himself into a novel doesnt have metaphorical significance.

[Anonymous No.18318536]

>>18316154
that's not how you use the word esoteric you pseud

[Anonymous No.18319460]

An above average /lit/ poster armed with a dictionary and thesaurus.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319487]

He’s in the tradition of Aestheticism and decadents. Look into these and you’ll find that lapidary beauty you desire.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319534]

Going to post some decadent/aesthetic author excerpts so you may understand the flavor of their writing.

Here is Walter Pater, describing Mona Lisa.

“ The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea.”

Next is an excerpt from huysmans.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319540]

>>18319534

"Well, crumble then, society! perish, old world!" cried Des Esseintes, indignant at the ignominy of the spectacle he had conjured up,--and the exclamation broke the nightmare that oppressed him.

"Ah!" he groaned, "to think that all this is not a dream! to think that I am about to go back into the degraded and slavish mob of the century!" He tried to call up, for the healing of his wounded spirit, the consoling maxims of Schopenhauer; he said over to himself Pascal's grievous axiom: "The soul sees nothing that does not afflict it when it thinks of it"; but the words rang in his brain like sounds without sense; his weariness of spirit disintegrated them, robbed them of all meaning, all consolatory virtue, all effective and soothing force.
He realized, at last, that the arguments of pessimism were powerless to comfort him; that the impossible belief in a future life could be the only calmant.

A fit of rage swept away like a hurricane his efforts after resignation, his attempts at indifference. He could deceive himself no more, there was nothing, nothing left for it, everything was over; the bourgeoisie were guzzling, as it might be at Clamart, on their knees, from paper parcels, under the grand old ruins of the Church, which had become a place of assignation, a mass of débris, defiled by unspeakable quibbles and indecent jests. Could it be that, to prove once for all that He existed, the terrible God of Genesis and the pale Crucified of Golgotha were not going to renew the cataclysms of an earlier day, to rekindle the rain of fire that consumed the ancient homes of sin, the cities of the Plain? Could it be that this foul flood was to go on spreading and drowning in its pestilential morass this old world where now only seeds of iniquity sprang up and harvests of shame flourished?

Suddenly the door was unclosed; in the distance, framed in the opening, appeared men carrying lights in their caps, with clean-shaven cheeks and a tuft on the chin, handling packing-cases and shifting furniture; then the door closed again after the servant, who marched off with a bundle of books under his arm.

Des Esseintes dropped into a chair, in despair. "In two days more I shall be in Paris," he exclaimed; "well, all is over; like a flowing tide, the waves of human mediocrity rise to the heavens and they will engulf my last refuge; I am opening the sluice-gates myself, in spite of myself. Ah; but my courage fails me, and my heart is sick within me!--Lord, take pity on the Christian who doubts, on the sceptic who would fain believe, on the galley-slave of life who puts out to sea alone, in the darkness of night, beneath a firmament illumined no longer by the consoling beacon-fires of the ancient hope."

[Anonymous No.18319544]

>>18319534
(You)

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319573]

>>18319540
An excerpt from Clark Ashton smith, a pulp writer who intentionally wrote in this style.

“ I sought the cloister of the dead, when, fallen athwart the funereal glooms of yew and cypress, the sunset wrought a phantom flush upon the pale stone of tomb or of cenotaph. Dreaming above the marbles, I saw the troubled shadows rouse, and the sullen branches yield a dim and sombre gold to the lowering light. Withdrawn erewhile on the sun's enormous heart, the sanguine fire left all the heavens wan as a dying face Twilight came in veils of silver shadow, and I saw the moon, like a mausoleum of dead Beauty faroff on the waste of eastern azure.

How reticent, in their sealed marmorean cells, lay the cryptic brotherhood of death, while the tides of light and color, of shade, and form and vision, flowed forever athwart the heavens and the world! Methought their uniting silence had prevailed on that solitary place, where the very cypresses were full of a black langour, as they bent down with their groping roots fast-aught among forgotten bones. I felt the overflowing of peace and slumber, where Lethe had its fountain-head in every- tomb, and where the wind came to immerse itself for awhile in the stagnant air that was full of the floating shadows of the mortuary.

Musing upon the mystery of sleep and oblivion, the silence pervaded my very soul, and all things grew dim as with Lethean mist while I sank in a gulf of forgetfulness profound as that of the dead. Anon, as a murmuring of sound that rose from afar, and seemed to approach by slow degrees. I grew aware of all the bustle and tumult which went on beneath the apparency of peace and stillness-the subterranean labour of dissolution which ceases not for night or day-the toil of worms and beetles and moles in the service of time and change, and the merchantry of necrophores in the underground city of death.”

And a small bit from remy du gourmont

“ She lit the candelabras which stood on the mantelpiece. Placed at the head of the bead, on a side-table, they looked like two burning bushes, their flames solemn and inextinguishable. But beneath that avalanche of light the dead man became hideous: the pale head displayed a whiteness more livid than the bedsheet, ghastly against the cambric of the pillow; pits of shadow were hollowed out under the eyes and his nose was villainously elongated, and even the mouth seemed wicked – his mouth, which was so very gentle!”

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319612]

>>18319573

The ceremony by Arthur machen

From her childhood, from those early and misty days which began to seem unreal, she recollected the grey stone in the wood.
It was something between the pillar and the pyramid in shape, and its grey solemnity amidst the leaves and the grass shone and shone from those early years, always with some hint of wonder. She remembered how, when she was quite a little girl, she had strayed one day, on a hot afternoon, from her nurse’s side, and only a little way in the wood the grey stone rose from the grass, and she cried out and ran back in panic terror.
‘What a silly little girl,’ the nurse had said. ‘It’s only the . . . stone.’ She had quite forgotten the name that the servant had given, and she was always ashamed to ask as she grew older.
But always that hot day, that burning afternoon of her childhood when she had first looked consciously on the grey image in the wood, remained not a memory but a sensation. The wide wood swelling like the sea, the tossing of the bright boughs in the sunshine, the sweet smell of the grass and flowers, the beating of the summer wind upon her cheek, the gloom of the underglade rich, indistinct, gorgeous, significant as old tapestry; she could feel it and see it all, and the scent of it was in her nostrils. And in the midst of the picture, where the strange plants grew gross in shadow, was the old grey shape of the stone.
But there were in her mind broken remnants of another and far earlier impression. It was all uncertain, the shadow of a shadow, so vague that it might well have been a dream that had mingled with the confused waking thoughts of a little child. She did not know that she remembered, she rather remembered the memory. But again it was a summer day, and a woman, perhaps the same nurse, held her in her arms, and went through the wood. The woman carried bright flowers in one hand; the dream had in it a glow of bright red, and the perfume of cottage roses. Then she saw herself put down for a moment on the grass, and the red colour stained the grim stone, and there was nothing else— except that one night she woke up and heard the nurse sobbing.
She often used to think of the strangeness of very early life; one came, it seemed, from a dark cloud, there was a glow of light, but for a moment, and afterwards the night. It was as if one gazed at a velvet curtain, heavy, mysterious, impenetrable blackness, and then, for the twinkling of an eye, one spied through a pin-hole a storied town that flamed, with fire about its walls and pinnacles. And then again the folding darkness, so that sight became illusion, almost in the seeing. So to her was that earliest, doubtful vision of the grey stone, of the red colour spilled upon it, with the incongruous episode of the nursemaid, who wept at night.
But the later memory was clear; she could feel, even now, the inconsequent terror that sent her away shrieking, running to the nurse’s skirts.

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319619]

>>18319612
Afterwards, through the days of girlhood, the stone had taken its place amongst the vast array of unintelligible things which haunt every child’s imagination. It was part of life, to be accepted and not questioned; her elders spoke of many things which she could not understand, she opened books and was dimly amazed, and in the Bible there were many phrases which seemed strange. Indeed, she was often puzzled by her parents’ conduct, by their looks at one another, by their half-words, and amongst all these problems which she hardly recognized as problems, was the grey ancient figure rising from dark grass.
Some semi-conscious impulse made her haunt the wood where shadow enshrined the stone. One thing was noticeable; that all through the summer months the passers-by dropped flowers there. Withered blossoms were always on the ground, amongst the grass, and on the stone fresh blooms constantly appeared. From the daffodil to the Michaelmas daisy* there was marked the calendar of the cottage gardens, and in the winter she had seen sprays of juniper and box, mistletoe and holly. Once she had been drawn through the bushes by a red glow, as if there had been a fire in the wood, and when she came to the place, all the stone shone and all the ground about it was bright with roses.
In her eighteenth year she went one day into the wood, carrying with her a book that she was reading. She hid herself in a nook of hazel, and her soul was full of poetry, when there was a rustling, the rapping of parted boughs returning to their place. Her concealment was but a little way from the stone, and she peered through the net of boughs, and saw a girl timidly approaching. She knew her quite well; it was Annie Dolben, the daughter of a labourer, lately a promising pupil at Sunday school. Annie was a nice-mannered girl, never failing in her curtsy, wonderful for her knowledge of the Jewish Kings. Her face had taken an expression that whispered, that hinted strange things; there was a light and a glow behind the veil of flesh. And in her hand she bore lilies. The lady hidden in hazels watched Annie come close to the grey image; for a moment her whole body palpitated with expectation, almost the sense of what was to happen dawned upon her. She watched Annie crown the stone with flowers, she watched the amazing ceremony that followed.
And yet, in spite of all her blushing shame, she herself bore blossoms to the wood a few months later. She laid white hothouse lilies upon the stone, and orchids of dying purple, and crimson exotic flowers. Having kissed the grey image with devout passion, she performed there all the antique immemorial rite.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.18319659]

>>18319544
I hope these excerpts will have served to give you lads a good shilling, so that those who enjoy the lapidary style of decadent, nearly oneiric, highly sensual and feverish Prose have a few more options and can research the developments of this style. There are two novelists and one poet who I know of, who I’ve yet to read in full, yet they appear to be writing within these traditions.

The Poet is Donald Sidney freyer, who models himself off of the decadents, Edmund Spenser and his teacher Clark Ashton smith.

the other two would be Dimitris Lyacos who has much influence from Lautreamont, Trakl and Beckett, Dante and even Joyce. But from what little I’ve read his flavor is exceedingly decadent in character.

The final one would be John Banville, who’s primary influences are Proust, nabokov, yeats and Henry James.

If you want contemporary writers, these are the best options for this flavor.

[Anonymous No.18319923]

>>18316074
Very good post, and perfectly sums up why I think Nabokov is one of the greatest writers.

[Anonymous No.18319938]

>>18316424
>melodramatic

What? He is not melodramatic at all. In fact, like Flaubert (and he did notice this in Flaubert), Nabokov laughs at the melodrama of his own characters.
Anyway, what books do you like?

[Anonymous No.18319959]

>>18316424
>couldn't exceed halfway through. I tried to get into luzhan defense and glory
anon can't read or write English
>Theyre just so... melodramatic, really.
but thinks talking about the movie is the same thing

[Anonymous No.18320079]

>>18316595
> A young boy merely entered a street after running off, and the book took itself to be filled with the overly descriptive details of him... crossing a street.

What?
So you are against description? You are against good writing?
Go read crime stories, then, or The da Vinci Code, if what you want is something 'exciting'.
Reminder that the greatest Ancient poem is the same one which spends an entire canto describing a shield, and half a canto describing the Catalogue of Ships. As Auden once said, if you can't appreciate the Catalogue of Ships, then maybe literature is not for you. Melville writes dozens and dozens of pages on cetology in Moby Dick. Dante has entire cantos explaining scholastic philosophy.
The problem with people who 'read for the story' or for 'shock' is that they could as well be watching a movie telling the same story, or a bad translation of the book, or an earlier version, say, the first draft (which the author himself chose not to publish), as long as the sequence of events and the order in which they were arranged remained the same. Only pretentiousness makes those people read Hamlet rather than 'Simplified Hamlet for High-School': they aren't getting any of the poetry, they're just interest in 'what's going to happen'.
If what you love is the art of literature, i.e., the art of putting words in order, then there is no such thing as 'over-description', only bad and good description. That's it. Homer is not over-descriptive of Achilles's shield, Melville is not over-descriptive of whales. If you think they are, go and read mystery novels, or watch the movie Troy. You'll be way more pleased. People who 'wait for the movie' are correct, because they are the kind of people who only likes stories; people who pride themselves on having read The Great Gatsby before the film was made, but read it only for the story, are actually much stupider, and wasting their time.

Mein Gott, when I publish my novel I am going to write a preface telling the reader 'This book has no story, and if you wish to read an exciting tale full of action, adventure, rape, and murder, may I direct you towards the works of King, Christie, and Diesel. You're welcome.'
Some people read Beowulf and the only thing they remember is that there were dragons in it.

[Anonymous No.18320132]

I agree with >>18316154 in that it's not his intention isn't to try and "make something" out of exactly, but just to have fun.
He is plastic and pretentious, but not exactly a psued, since his stories never tried to be intellectual. I'm honestly of the opinion that works of fiction are purely for entertainment and that plenty of writers take themselves far too seriously. People like Nabokov or Joyce write for the keks: >>18316265
>Faulkner, William. Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.
>Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian.
Classic.

[Anonymous No.18320434]

>>18318051
Different guy but:

I think the main characteristic is the way he is so childlike while at the same time he's a giant conniving pervert. I think he uses his way of storytelling to put his actions in a less deplorable light. The metaphors and allusions and the well spoken way he writes is to cajole the audience into finding an empathetic response. He is describing such predatory and selfish, tantrum like violence and the feelings he gets like he believes he's just a product of his "uncontrollable" nature

In short he's an immature, selfish, and predatory pervert, but he refuses to acknowledge that

[Anonymous No.18320615]

>>18315997
Lolita isnt representative of his style. Read any of his Russian works.

[Anonymous No.18321405]

>>18319659
>No Ligotti
Gay reccs

[Anonymous No.18321541]

>>18319659
>decadent, nearly oneiric, highly sensual and feverish Prose
none of that is what makes nabby good. he is closer to dr seuss than any of those unfun and humorless writhers. if i see you use "lapidary" again, ull get the belt
>>18319460
this

[Anonymous No.18321595]

>>18321405
Ligotti is degenerative and rotten (in a positive way), not decadent.

[Anonymous No.18321606]

>>18321595
Nab is one of his major influence

[Anonymous No.18321616]

>>18321606
I won't say major since most of his Nabokovian tales are in his first two collections. Later tales resmble Kafka and Borges more. Besides, his prose and the common elements in his tales are removed from decadence.

[Anonymous No.18321622]

>>18321616
List of his influences according to him
>Charles Baudelaire
>Thomas Bernhard
>Aloysius Bertrand
>Jorge Luis Borges
>William Burroughs
>Kafka
>Louis Ferdinand Celine
>E. M. Cioran
>Douglas Harding
>U.G. Krishnamurti
>H. P. Lovecraft
>Vladimir Nabokov
>Emile Nelligan
>Michael Persinger
>Edgar Allan Poe
>Maurice Rollinat
>Arthur Schopenhauer
>Bruno Schulz
>Paul Valery
>Dino Buzzati

[Anonymous No.18321633]

>>18321622
And? As I said his later collections (Noctuary and TG) are much more reliant on his personal philosophy, Kafka, Cioran, Schopenhauer etc. more than it does on Nabokov. Even the Nabokovian tales in his first collection (Alice's last adventure, notes on the writing of horror, troubles of Dr. Thoss etc.) aren't decadent.

[Anonymous No.18321643]

>>18320079
based

[Anonymous No.18321658]

>>18321633
>The unique thing about Nabokov is that he practiced the writing of fiction as a form of sorcery. His novels and stories draw you in with their language and their humor, not to mention his troupe of demented narrators who seem to be descendants of Poe’s band of madmen. But behind the language and the humor there is another dimension, a world of a terrible desperation where Nabokov works like a wizard to make the impossible happen right before the readers eyes — specifically, to defeat the limitations of time and space, to recover the losses brought about by the ravaging vicissitudes of one’s life and by the course of history itself, and, ultimately, to defeat death.

>This is the underworld of Nabokov’s works, and it’s most obvious and moving in his masterpiece, Lolita, wherein the principal characters, who are declared as dead in the preface to the book, are all brought back to life in quite spectral ways by the writing of the book itself. Of course, the magic doesn’t really work, except from a strictly aesthetic perspective, but perhaps that’s the deepest meaning of Nabokov’s fiction. In commenting about the taboo subject matter of Lolita, which has since become even more taboo, he mentioned two others that at the time were off limits to American writers: that of a successful black-white marriage and that of an atheist who lives a good and purposeful life and dies in his sleep at an advanced age. Nabokov was himself enough of an atheist not to believe in magic of any sort. Lovecraft argued that only a non-believer in the occult could successfully create the thrill of the fantastic and the supernatural — the feeling that all common sense and the apparent order of the world have been overturned — because such a thing was so alien to their view of the world as wholly materialistic. This was a self-serving remark, since Lovecraft himself didn’t believe in any form of the supernatural.

>In his book The Idea of the Holy affiliate link, Rudolf Otto contends that horror stories provide a kind of low-level spiritual experience, a pale and primitive hint of a full-fledged encounter with the divine as a terrifying and otherworldly force. But Otto was a professional theologian and a Christian, so his ideas, interesting though they are, are as self-serving as Lovecraft’s.

>Nabokov’s statement that portraying an atheist as a decent person is a taboo subject in literature betrays his stance as someone who felt atheism to be an unjustly persecuted intellectual posture. On the other side, believers have made frequent declarations to the effect that they are being shoved aside by what they perceive as the dominant forces of secular humanism.

>https://fantasticmetropolis.com/i/ligotti

He is interested in other aspects of Nab.

[Anonymous No.18321659]

>>18319534
nabokov shits all over this

[Anonymous No.18322485]

Bump