Nabokov on The Writing Reader vs. The Reading Writer (sort of)

Again, Vladimir Nabokov expresses my sentiments better than I ever could (though it's ironic I'm finding so much enjoyment in the articulation of my thoughts in his words, as just after the passage below, Nabokov writes, "minor readers like to recognize their own ideas in a pleasing disguise" - to which I must reply, in the words of Marianne Moore, "I’ve always felt that if a thing has been said in the very best way, how can you say it better?"):

"Time and space, the colors of the seasons, the movements of muscles and minds, all these are for writers of genius (as far as we can guess and I trust we guess right) not traditional notions which may be borrowed from the circulating library of public truths but a series of unique surprises which master artists have learned to express in their own unique way. To minor authors is left the ornamentation of the commonplace: these do not bother about any reinventing of the world; they merely try to squeeze the best they can out of a given order of things, out of traditional patterns of fiction."

I'd tried to write something to this effect last month, and naturally, Nabokov's facility of thought and expression eclipses my fumbling, groping, sometimes fatuous ramblings. Nabokov is Nabokov for a reason.
=)

Also, this from Elizabeth Bishop, to make us all feel more foolish:

“I do not understand the nature of the satisfaction a completely accurate description or imitation of anything at all can give, but apparently in order to produce it the description or imitation must be brief, or compact, and have at least the effect of being spontaneous.”

Nabokov on Macro and Micro Reading

I'm aware that though I arrive at my many made-up terms independently, the concepts they attempt to describe have existed for decades (centuries?).

Here's Vladimir Nabokov (from the essay in the post below, "Good Readers and Good Writers") on what I call macro and micro reading:

"In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected."

I agree! But this has never stopped me from formulating a (hypo)thesis about a book 13 pages in. It has prevented my posting about books before I read and reread them obsessively.

My mom sees I'm reading Revolutionary Road, the book open to a page littered with marginal scribblings (I'm a carnal, rather than a courtly lover of books). Then: Haven't you already read that, Becky? Of course I have! But now I'm READING it.

Again, Nabokov understands my actions and motives better than I or my mother - even after I try, futilely, to explain them:

"Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation."

Precisely!

There will be more substantive posts soon, though the beautiful Chicago summer slyly hints to me that "there are times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good writing."
(via Laudator Temporis Acti - from Charles Lamb in a 1796 letter to Coleridge)

I've not yet been afflicted with that disposition, but it's early in the season.

TESTING NEW GOOGLE BOOKS FEATURES!

Am I the only person excited about the new Google Books features?

This is what I'm reading:

Nabokov's "Good Readers and Good Writers" from Lectures on Literature.

(added the essay to my short list after THIS entry @ Wisdom of the West)

Feel free to read along!

More info on Google Books updates HERE, HERE, and HERE.

The new features include embedding (see above), a more comprehensive search engine (to locate text within books, and the books themselves), more intuitive navigation, and a sleeker interface.

I, personally, LOVE the changes.

Also, Google Books has reached a landmark legal settlement allowing the service to provide online access to (potentially) millions more books than it previously could!