Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Nabokov: Personal Past

PERSONAL PAST

Pure Time, Perceptual Time, Tangible Time, Time free of content and context, this, then, is the kind of Time described by my creature under my sympathetic direction.

The Past is also part of the tissue, part of the present, but it looks somewhat out of focus. The Past is a constant accumulation of images, but our brain is not an ideal organ for constant retrospection and the best we can do is to pick out and try to retain those patches of rainbow light flitting through memory. The act of retention is the act of art, artistic selection, artistic blending, artistic re-combination of actual events. The bad memoirist re-touches his past, and the result is a blue-tinted or pink-shaded photograph taken by a stranger to console sentimental bereavement. The good memoirist, on the other hand, does his best! to preserve the utmost truth of the detail. One of the ways he achieves his intent is to find the right spot on his canvas for placing the right patch of remembered color.
posted by Tulip Press at

2 Comments:

Blogger DJ Pat Chez said...

the right patch!

March 19, 2009 at 1:32 PM  
Blogger Tulip Press said...

Thanks Patches!

March 19, 2009 at 1:39 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home