NPPF - Enchantment Required

[s~Z]

>From Nabokov's lecture on The Metamorphosis:

 Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music,
a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank
and spines that remain unkindled.  "To take upon us the mystery of
things"-what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia-this
is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously.  A poor man is
robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat," or more correctly "The
Carrick"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's "The
Metamorphosis)-so what?

There is no rational answer to "so what."

We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part
of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell,
some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can
neither define, nor dismiss.  Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can
get to a definition of art.  Where there is beauty there is pity for the
simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with
the matter, the world dies with the individual.  If Kafka's "The
Metamorphosis" strikes anyone as something more than an entomological
fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and
great readers.

 I want to discuss fantasy and reality, and their mutual relationship.  If
we consider the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" story as an allegory-the struggle
between Good and Evil within every man-then this allegory is tasteless and
childish.  To the type of mind that would see an allegory here, its shadow
play would also postulate physical happenings which common sense knows to be
impossible; but actually in the setting of the story, as viewed by a
commonsensical mind, nothing at first sight seems to run counter to general
human experience.  I want to suggest, however, that a second look shows that
the setting of the story does run counter to general human experience, and
that Utterson and the other men around Jekyll are, in a sense, as fantastic
as Mr. Hyde.  Unless we see them in a fantastic light, there is no
enchantment.  And if the enchanter leaves and the storyteller and the
teacher remain alone together, they make poor company.