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“L” and alliterations thereof, turns out to have immense importance in literature and science. Science and art can co-exist. Surprised? Let me explain.
The creator of the infamous character “Lolita,” Vladimir Nabokov, turns out to have been not only one of the most influential writers of the past century, but to have been an amateur scientist with keen insight into evolution, recently validated by modern DNA technologies.
“Lolita” is a novel that has been revered, reviled as pornography, banned and studied by scholars since its publication in 1958. I am in no way qualified to discuss its relevance in English literature, but I will share this. I love language, and the first time I read “Lolita” I was stunned by the beauty and art of Nabokov’s use of language. He wrote this novel not in his native language Russian but in English and was able to express love in written language something most of us can only feel at a deep emotional level, often left breathless and speechless.
Here’s a peek at some of his artistry:
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
Do you feel it? No? Here’s one of my favorites:
Think of a mural in a lodge in the country, adjacent to a children’s camp site normally bustling with activity during the summer. You’re relaxing after a long nature walk in the Fall having appreciated nature’s palette of foilage, warming up with a cup of tea. You casually notice a painting, on a wall opposite the lodge’s fireplace. We’ve all seen them: those kitschy paintings depicting riders on horses, foxes hunting. Think of how you would write a description so that the reader would actually “see it” {a great exercise, this.} Here’s Nabokov in “Lolita,” his imagination, love for “Lolita,” artistry and creativity run wild:
Are you ready? Its beauty is so rich that it begs to be read out loud – forget the words’ meanings – pay attention to their rhythm.
There would have been a lake. There would have been an arbor in flame-flower. There would have been nature studies – a tiger pursuing a bird of paradise, a choking snake sheathing whole the flayed trunk of a shoat. There would have been a sultan, his face expressing great agony (belied, as it were, by his molding caress), helping a callypygean slave child to climb a column of onyx. There would have been those luminous globules of gonadal glow that travel up the opalescent sides of juke boxes. There would have been all kinds of camp activities on the part of the intermediate group, Canoeing, Coranting, Combing Curls in the lakeside sun. There would have been poplars, apples, a suburban Sunday. There would have been a fire opal dissolving within a ripple-ringed pool, a last throb, a last dab of color, stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh…
Can you see it, feel it?
Well, this artist, writer and visionary dabbled in evolutionary theory while studying butterflies as a curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.
According to The New York Times:
And in a speculative moment in 1945, he came up with a sweeping hypothesis for the evolution of the butterflies he studied, a group known as the Polyommatus blues. He envisioned them coming to the New World from Asia over millions of years in a series of waves.
This paper published in 1945 has been supported by recent genetic studies by Prof. Naomi Pierce at Harvard University.
“By God, he got every one right,” Dr. Pierce said. “I couldn’t get over it — I was blown away.”
Dr. Pierce and her colleagues also investigated Nabokov’s idea that the butterflies had come over the Bering Strait. The land surrounding the strait was relatively warm 10 million years ago, and has been chilling steadily ever since. Dr. Pierce and her colleagues found that the first lineage of Polyommatus blues that made the journey could survive a temperature range that matched the Bering climate of 10 million years ago. The lineages that came later are more cold-hardy, each with a temperature range matching the falling temperatures.
Nabokov’s taxonomic horseshoes turn out to belong in Nome after all.
“What a great paper,” said James Mallet, an expert on butterfly evolution at University College London. “It’s a fitting tribute to the great man to see that the most modern methods that technology can deliver now largely support his systematic arrangement.”
Dr. Pierce says she believes Nabokov would have been greatly pleased to be so vindicated, and points to one of his most famous poems, “On Discovering a Butterfly.”The 1943 poem begins:
I found it and I named it, being versed
in taxonomic Latin; thus became
godfather to an insect and its first
describer — and I want no other fame.
I want no other fame, indeed. But, Mr. Nabokov, you have revealed the power and beauty of language and have touched many hearts.
January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
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February 2, 2011
February 2, 2011
