room temperature
"When I first read Nabokov's Glory, I had been bothered by a sentence early on that claimed that the mother's love for the hero was so violent and intense 'that it seemed to make the heart hoarse.' Basic anatomy aside, the phrase seemed wrong -- strained and conventional and rhythmically bad and untrue to the real sensations of love. I ascribed its general inadequacy to some especially tricky problem of translation. But now that I had the Bug to care for three days a week, I noticed that this phrase, which I had remembered only as something puzzlingly out of character, was coming to mind increasingly frequently, and seeming each time to capture more exactly the real pneumatics of the parental sensation...."
- A Salon interview with Nicholson Baker.
- Many thanks to Akiko Nakata for the quote and reference.
Previous | Index | Next Nabokovilia | Home | Index | Books | Resources | Tributes | Contact | Shop