on Ada, Vladimir Nabokov
from an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk [1971-72]:
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.”
