Nabokov, Proust, and Joyce

Three books which immediately come to mind when I think of especially enjoyable works are Proust's in search of lost time, Nabokov's Lolita, and Joyce's Ulysses. As it happens these three books also represent entirely different styles of prose which, of course, one would expect from writers of the highest calibre. It also goes on to show how much a writer of brilliance can mould and manipulate and create within the close boundaries which he or she may have chosen. I read not for the story or the plot or the moral or in search for some kind of identification with the characters of the story. I read to be enchanted by the novel experiments which the masters of the art perform through words, phrases, allusions, references, similes, metaphors, details, and patterns. And in my opinion nobody experiments better than the three writers I mentioned.

Of these three Nabokov is most definitely the most surgical. He writes in impeccably measured and exquisitely adorned sentences which have the compositional perfection of a brilliantly conceived and performed scientific experiment. It comes as little surprise that that is what he does so well, given his own scientific bent and training. There is something proud and snobbish about his writing. Something which makes you aware of the immense chasm that separates his intelligence and sensibility from mere mortals. Once you accept the existence of this chasm as something which must necessarily crop up in this world which plays host to all sorts of random possibilities, you can really enjoy that which lays forever outside capabilities of mere writers. Proust, on the other hand is amazingly observant and sensitive. He derives his strength not from the surgical dissection of language, which I'm sure he's plenty capable of, but from the various connections that he is able to illuminate in the world of his experiences. His writing strikes at a deeper level than mere intelligence. It strikes straight at the heart, the gut, and the soul. Through the words that he lovingly assembles to describe his own emotions and the world around him, he's able to make his experiences immediate to the reader so much so that the reader becomes unaware that the medium of words is at work. His art is so immersive that I forget that the art exists. He's able to take my imagination, hand in hand, on a stroll along the fertile green shores of his memories, through the mighty dense thicket which clearly reeks of a moist decaying undergrowth made up of layers upon layers of archaeological mnemosyne. Out of the three Joyce is the most mercurial. His writing is full of literary, historical, and popular allusions. His characters are complex and flawed and exceedingly intelligent. His sentences are brilliantly constructed so much so that each one of them is an exquisite piece of art. He doesn't seem to care so much for the compositional perfection that Nabokov goes for in his sentences. Instead he's supremely experimental and evocative. Reading every other line in Ulysses is like learning something new. It's like standing in front of a master trickster and feeling amused and amazed at the seemingly endless card tricks which he seems to be able to perform. Of course, Joyce is not just a trickster. He's a true magician. His stack of cards must have belonged to the devil himself who lent to them the kind of sorcery and sinful magnetism which seem to permeate his writing. In my limited experience as a reader I cannot think of a greater master of the language than Joyce.