Lovely Little Lyricisms of Language

Every now and then when I’m leaving a message on a friends’ answering machine, I catch myself - albeit too late - suddenly start rhyming my message, like:

Hey Brian
How you doin’
Sorry I missed you
Just wondering what you were up to...

I don’t really write them down or anything, it’s kind of automatic; but I do get a kick out of doing this - though I'm not sure how my friends appreciate it. I have left quite a few of these messages over the years, and given the fact that they are most definitely NOT being archived, I must be repeating myself by now. It is, however, sure that I am leaving excessively long and rather meandering messages. I just like the way the words sound - though some might argue that it's the sound of my voice that I like. I predict many think it's the latter but I beg you let me make my case before you judge.

I have always been fascinated by the way a language sounds: each language has a distinct range of sounds that are made with the throat for each word as well as the way these words are strung together in a phrase. For someone who has learned 9 of them by now, I have obviously developed a special relationship to them that might not be common among monolinguals.

Picking up a language has always come easy for me, but learning the rules has always come last. This is the case with most people I predict, but it seems extra easy for me to start imitating the sounds than learning the reasoning behind it. My challenge with German has always been that: I can read the damn language so easily, but I can’t get past level II when it comes to composing comprehensible phrases. Language is sound essentially (though the deaf might challenge me vehemently on this - I take their gesturing in silence) and I have always been fascinated in the way making different sounds makes a language. I notice this even when I’m writing – like a few of the entries in this Blog: I compose with the sonic scales in mind.

You see, one of my all time favourite passages in literature has always been the opening lines in Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov.

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.Li.Ta

...wow, the words haunt me every now and then. I can't get over how beautiful this passage sounds – he clearly composed these line for it’s orchestral track - it’s a symphony in T major. Just look at the number of times the letter “T” appears, it’s almost in every word. What’s more “T” is used in all of its phonic variations: soft T, hard T and the “th” T. It is so palatable to read that you almost have to read it out loud so you just to give it credit. It’s lyrical, poetic, logical and self referential…this is ART folks, at its finest moments.

Nabakov is well known for doing these kinds of constructs. His stories often precisely provoke an image, or a sound or a state of mind as well being full of mysterious riddles that intrigue and linger in the mind. He loved words and language - he spoke at least four of them and wrote in just as many. He loved writing AND he loved chess: he was a master tactician. Like an expert chess player, he planned all of his moves down to the minutest detail with mathematical precisions on little cue cards, before he started writing. When you read his work, you are invited into a world that is so complex and rich in texture and history that you can get hours of entertainment deciphering one paragraph. As in chess, the more you get to know the game the more you start to see it as more than just a hunt for the king by a band of disabled soldiers, but a dance of innumerable combination of moves and strategies that are played out like a well rehearsed tango. All the moves in chess are archived and named after long-gone players; once you learn the moves, the game becomes a historical saga constantly referring to itself as a construct. Nabokov’s books are often layered in imbedded in meaning in its construct. This is all very Roland Barthes esque, it’s just too bad that Nabokov hated Semiologists - in fact he hated everyone from what I can tell, just not one of the popular kids at school I suppose... I guess that goes with being a Russian aristocrat.

Anywhoo…

Reading Nabokov has taught me to read literature and appreciate lyricism – I find I am much more aware of the way words are written and sound since I read his books. Unfortunately this kind of awareness sometimes makes one sound a tad eccentric. Alas!