Walter de la Mare / Vladimir Nabokov

Chapter XVIII of THE RETURN by Walter de la Mare

“…this is the very dell Boccaccio had in his mind’s eye when he wrote the Decameron. There really is something almost classic in those pines. And I’d sometimes swear with my eyes just out of the water I’ve seen Dryads half in hiding peeping between those beeches.”

…as spoken by Herbert Herbert. When I first mentioned, earlier in this real-time review, his name’s assonance with Humbert Humbert, I was sort of joking, or, at best, brainstorming…! But now I am convinced that he is, in this novella (1910), the forerunner of Nabokov’s character. A free-bwheeling, free-thinking reference, amid the various philosophical exhortations about literature, the touch of genius, and about Proustian selves, ‘rooting in’, ‘working in’, soul fighting soul, face fighting face, exhortations by Herbert Herbert to Lawford, and later by Gisela when she has a picnic alone with Lawford….

“As for literature, and style, and all that gallimaufry, don’t fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hint of genius in his making.”

“We’re all, every one of us, sodden with facts, drugged with the second-hand, and barnacled with respectability until – until the touch comes. Goodness knows where from; but there’s no mistaking it; oh no!”

***

Full context of this review: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2022/09/20/the-return-by-walter-de-la-mare/