"It is certainly not then--not in dreams--but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower."
— Nabokov, Vladimir (1899-1977)
Work Title
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Random House
Date
1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951
Metaphor
"It is certainly not then--not in dreams--but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower."
Metaphor in Context
Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear bright selves. I am aware of them, without any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of mine they never knew. They sit apart, frowning at the floor, as if death were a dark taint, a shameful family secret. It is certainly not then--not in dreams--but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.
(p. 50)
(p. 50)
Provenance
Reading Leland de la Durantaye, "The Pattern of Cruelty and the Cruelty of Pattern in Vladimir Nabokov." The Cambridge Quarterly 35.4 (2006): 320.
Citation
Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory (New York: Vintage International, 1967).
Date of Entry
10/11/2011
