TEXTURE OF TIME: SOURCES AND PROBLEMS

Nathalia Saliba Dias

It is common knowledge that Nabokov took more than 10 years to come to terms with

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969). From 1957 to 1968, he researched the

nature of time from a scientific and philosophic point of view, which culminated in

the book’s fourth part, Texture of Time. In 1959, he sketched some notes to Letters

from Terra, which would have influenced the first and second part of Ada (Boyd, B.

Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Princeton UP, NJ: Princeton, 1991, 502). It

was, however, only in February 1966 that both projects collapsed into one when

Nabokov imagined the scene of the telephone call in the penultimate part of the novel

(Nabokov, V. Strong Opinions. Vintage International, NY: New York, 1989, 122).

Nabokov’s long research on time survived as a manuscript, at the Berg

Collection, in the New York Public Library, called: Notes for Texture of Time (1957-

68). It is composed of 137 index cards that Nabokov divided into 11 subcategories.

He titled each section on the upper part of each card. These subtopics are: space,

measurements/clocks, past, time, present, relativity, simultaneous events, spirals,

future, Gerald James Whitrow, and Saint Augustine. There are also a couple of loose

cards, which are not placed in any of the above categories. In the manuscript, he

names the authors, pages, and editions consulted. Nabokov also marks his reactions to

the authors: “nonsense,” “absurd,” “false,” “good work,” “ponder this,” “find another

comparison,” etc. Eventually, he crosses out excerpts with a red pencil and notes them

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
“used” or “partly used.” I compiled a list of more than 50 theorists, mentioned either

on the cards or in Chapter Four of Ada (see next section II). Some are Nabokov’s

primary sources, while others seem to be mentioned second-hand, such as Hermann

Minkowski, whose theories Nabokov seems to have encountered through Whitrow.

Most of the authors listed in Notes for Texture of Time were British

mathematicians, astrophysicists, or philosophers of science (e.g., Whitrow, Alfred North

Whitehead, Arthur Stanley Eddington, Samuel Alexander, John McTaggart, and John

Alexander Gunn). Many of were affiliated with Oxford or Trinity College (Cambridge),

either as students or professors. Nabokov also included French psychologists or

philosophers (Henri Bergson, Paul Fraisse, Henri Piéron, Pierre Janet, Jean-Marie

Guyau and Eugène Minkowski) in conjunction with important German physicists

(Albert Einstein and Hermann Minkowski). Sometimes, Nabokov only mentions the

name of the author, without providing the bibliographical reference (year, edition,

translator). These, I assume, are his secondary sources (e.g., Einstein and Minkowski

are mentioned in Whitrow).

II Sources in Notes for Texture of Time

The editions and translations are provided as given by Nabokov in the manuscript.

When he fails to mention the edition, year or translation, I have provided the reference

as given by Whitrow’s The Philosophy of Time (1963), or the first edition of the volume

cited.

Alexander, Samuel. Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow 1916 –
1918. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920.

Aristotle. “Physica.” The Work of Aristotle, edited by W. D. Ross, vol. II. Oxford:
Oxford, 1930.

Augustine, Saint. Confessions, Book XI, translated by E. B. Pusey. Chicago: Henry

Regnery Co., 1948.
Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness, translated by F.L. Pogson, M.A. London: George Allen and Unwin,
[1889]1910.

---. Matter and Memory. New York: Macmillan Company, 1911.

Berkeley, George. The First Dialogue Between Hylas and Philonous. London:
Everyman Edition, 1953.

Blum, Harold Francis. Time’s Arrow and Evolution. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1951.

Čapek, Milič. “Time in Relativity Theory: Arguments for a philosophy of Becoming.”

The Voices of Time, edited by J. T. Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp.
434-454.

Clay, E.R. (E. Robert Kelley). The Alternative: A study in Psychology. London:
Macmillan and Co., 1882.

Cleugh, Mary Frances. Time and its Importance in Modern Thought. London:
Methuen and Co., 1937.

Cohen, John. “Subjective Time.” The Voices of Time, edited by J. T. Fraser. New
York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp. 257-278.

Cornelius, A. Benjamin. “The ideas of Time in the History of Philosophy.” The

Voices of Time, edited by J. T. Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp. 3-30.

Dunne, John William. An Experiment with Time. London: Farber and Farber, 1964.

---. The Serial Universe. London: Farber and Farber, 1945.

Eddington, Arthur Stanley. Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General
Relativity Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1921.

Edgell, Beatrice. Theories of Memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.

Einstein, Albert. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. London: Routledge,
1954.

Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1955.

Fraser, Julius Thomas. The Voices of Time: A Cooperative Survey of Man's Views of
Time as Expressed by the Sciences and by the Humanities. New York: George
Brazilier, 1966.

Fraisse, Paul. The Psychology of Time. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

Freud, Sigmund. Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by A.A. Bill, London,

1914.

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
Gardner, Martin. The Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror
Reflections to Superstrings. New York: Penguin Books, 1964.

Gunn, John Alexander. The Problem of Time. London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1929.

Guyau, Jean-Marie. La Genèse de l'Idée de Temps. Paris : F. Alcan, 1890.

Haldane, J. B. S. “Suggestions as to Quantitative Measurement of Rates of

Evolution.” Evolution, vol.3, 1949, p. 51-56.

Hamilton, W.R. Roy. Irish Academy., 1833-5.

Hamner, Karl C. “Experimental Evidence for the Biological Clock.” The Voices of
Time, edited by J. T. Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp.281-295.

Hebb, Donald Olding. A Textbook of Psychology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1958.

Hering, Ewald. “On Memory as a Universal Function of Organized Matter: A Lecture

Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna
[1870].” Unconscious Memory, translated by Butler S. London: David Bogue, 1880
pp. 97-133.

Hume. A Treatise on Human Nature, Book I, Part III, Section V. London, 1738.

Hutten, E. H. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 6, 1955.

Janet, Pierre. L’Évolution de la Mémoire & de la Notion du Temps. Paris: A Chahine,

1928.

Johnson, Martin Christopher. Time, Knowledge and the Nebulae. London: Farber and
Farber, 1945.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason, translated by N. Kemp Smith. London:

Macmillan, 1934.

Kümmel, Friedrich. “Time as Succession and the Problem of Duration.” The Voices of
Time, edited by J. T. Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp. 31-55.

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Philosophical Writings. London: J. M. Dent & Sons,

1934.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: A. S. Pringle-

Pattison, 1934.

Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon. Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen und optischen
Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpern [Attempt of a Theory of Electrical and Optical
Phenomena in Moving Bodies]. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1895.

McTaggart, John. The Nature of Existence. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1921.

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
Meerloo, Joost A. M. “Time Sense in Psychiatry.” The Voices of Time, edited by J. T.
Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp. 235-253.

“Memory.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 14th edition. 1934, pp. 138-140. Print.

Milne. E.A. Kinematic Relativity. Oxford, 1948.

Newton, Issac. Mathematical Principles. Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1934.

Pear, Tom Hatherley. Remembering and Forgetting. London: Methuen & Company
LTD, 1922.

Piéron, Henri. The sensations: Their Function, Processes and Mechanisms. London:
Frederick Mueller, 1952.

“Relativity.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 14th edition. 1934, pp. 95-99. Print.

Robb, Alfred A. The Absolute Relations of Time and Space. Cambridge: Cambridge:
University Press, 1921.

Schlegel, Richard. “Time and Thermodynamics.” The Voices of Time, edited by J. T.

Fraser. New York: George Brazilier, 1966, pp. 500-523.

Smart, J.J.C. The Temporal Asymmetry of the World. Analysis vol. 14 no. 4 (Mar.
1954), pp. 79-83.

“Space-time.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. 14th edition. 1934, pp. 105-108. Print.

Sturt, Mary. The Psychology of Time. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925.

“Time Measurement.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 14th edition. 1934, pp. 224-229.

Print.

Weyl, Hermann. Space-Time-Matter. London: Methuen &Company, 1922.

Whitehead, Alfred North. The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: At the University

Press, 1920.

Whitrow, Gerald James. The Philosophy of Time. New York: Harper, 1963.

William, James. Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Hold and Company,
1890.

Minkowski, Hermann. Raum und Zeit. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1909.

III Comments

One can draw several conclusions from the manuscript. The first is that Nabokov’s

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
research was vast, diverse, and crossing several fields. The majority of the references

enlisted above (more than 80% of the books consulted) were published between 1890

and 1960, which means that Nabokov is clearly responding to the scientific debate about

the nature of time that took place in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1922 (the

same year that Van Veen was drafting Texture of Time), Bergson and Einstein met at the

Société Française de Philosophie in Paris (Mullarkey, J. and K. A. Pearson, editors.

Henri Bergson: Key Writings. New York: Continuum, 2002, 26). It was the first time

the two Nobel laureates had appeared together in public, and their encounter was the

impetus for numerous reflections by the scientific community on the “problem of time

and space.” This discussion revolved, primarily, but not exclusively, around Einstein

and Bergson. It was concerned with whether time was a perceptual or a physical

phenomenon, and whether space was indeed related to time as Einstein famously

claimed. According to the sources annotated, one can also conclude that Nabokov was

clearly interested in others aspects of the discussion: the parallels between time and

motion; the historical definitions of time; the possibility of time reversal; scales of time;

the concept of Mental Present; the sensorial experiences of time, and also in time as a

biological phenomenon.

This debate between Bergson and Einstein occurred in a critical moment for the

epistemological rift between the humanities and hard science. It is generally believed

that the philosopher “lost” to the physicist that day since Bergson failed to comprehend

fundamental aspects of Einstein’s theory, especially the concept of simultaneity and the

twin paradox thought experience (Canales, J. The Physicist and the Philosopher:

Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed our Understanding of Time. Princeton

UP, NJ: Princeton, 2015, 23). Already an old man, Bergson seemed to represent the

impossibility of philosophy keeping up with new technological and scientific

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
discoveries.

Texture of Time is deeply rooted at this moment and it could be considered a

defense of Bergson in opposition to Einstein. Bergson’s name is mentioned five times in

the novel and Van Veen builds his career, in part, as a disciple of Bergson, openly

mentioning Bergson’s famous separation between time and space from the opening

pages of Time and Free Will (1889). In Chapter Five, though, the heroine asserts that

Van’s concept derives specifically from Bergson and Whitehead, in conjunction:

“‘Veen’s Time’ (as the concept was now termed in one breath, one breeze, with

‘Bergson’s Duration’ or Whitehead’s ‘Bright Fringe’)” (Nabokov, V. Ada, or Ardor: A

Family Chronicle. Vintage International, NY: New York, 1998, 248). Van aligns himself

with the philosophical school that defended time as “lived experience” instead of a

physical and mathematical entity, explaining his opposition to Einstein and other

physicists, like Minkowski and Paul Langevin. Van openly expresses his disagreement

with new physics, saying “[a]t this point, I suspect, I should say something about my

attitude to ‘Relativity.’ It is not sympathetic. What many cosmogonists tend to accept as

an objective truth is really the flaw inherent in mathematics which parades as truth”

(Nabokov, V. Ada, 234).

Whereas Texture of Time questions physics and Einstein’s theory, this does not

mean that time, in Ada, should be understood as memory, consciousness or

transcendence, as other scholars have argued before (Henry-Thommes, C. Recollection,

Memory, and Imagination: Selected Autobiographical Novels of Vladimir Nabokov.

Universitätverlag Winter Heidelberg. Heidelberg, 2006, 31). I believe that the reason for

the approximation between Ada, Bergson, and Whitehead is in how these philosophers

focus on the body, and not in the concept of time as an abstract phenomenon of the

mind. Several sources in the manuscript make clear the necessity of reinserting the
Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
discussion of the body and sensations in Nabokov’s concept of time: Bergson, Capek,

Clay, Cohen, Cornelius, Edgell, Fraise, Hammer, Hebb, Hering, Janet, Kummel,

Meerloo, Pear, Piéron, Sturt, James, and Whitehead are all thinkers that have

problematized such corporeal aspects, linking human biology and time’s experience.

The manuscript points to this manifest necessity to expand the discussion of

time in Nabokov’s works, raising questions like: How are these scientific sources

embedded in Ada? Why did Nabokov decide to abandon his philosophical research in

name of a fictional parody? What is the real nature of Texture of Time: is it a play? a

literary device? Or a serious, but dry treatise? Isn’t Van stressing the rift between

science and philosophy through the defense of Bergson over Einstein? Finally, how has

Nabokov incorporated the discussion of the body and physiological experiences of time

in Ada, or Ardor?

Some of these problems have been already scrutinized in Nabokovian

scholarship, especially the contestation of Einstein’s Relativity in Ada, or Ardor.

Stephen Blackwell claims that Nabokov would have decided to give relativity a

critical review from a fictional point of view, although he had “struggled with these

relativistic effects” (The Quill and the Scalpel: Nabokov’s Art and the Worlds of

Science. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2009, 162). Likewise, N. Katherine Hayles claims

that Nabokov introduces his own idiosyncratic variations on the new physics while

noticing that he “seems quite self-conscious to have set himself the task of coming to

terms with the new physics” (The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary

Strategies in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1984. 127). Rachel

Trousdale, in a different epistemological turn, claims that Nabokov rewrites relativity

as a metaphor for artistic creation and transnational literature. For Trousdale,

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
Nabokov, just like the physician’s formula, collapses time and space, culture and

language, to provide “an unifying frame of reference outside both the novel and real

world of common experience” (Nabokov, Rushdie, and the Transnational

Imagination: Novels of Exile and Alternate Worlds. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2010,

71).

Despite Nabokov’s serious research, science in Texture of Time should not be

taken too seriously. Nabokov collects various arguments about time’s existence in

physics, literature, psychology and biology, combining these ideas in rather

unresolved ways. This means that Nabokov has not accepted one single line of

thought or philosophical school. He, for example, questions Einstein at the same time

as he takes his new ideas as productive lines of thought. Texture of Time, therefore,

looks like a scientific treatise, as much as it derives from science, but it cannot be

interpreted as science because it is not a cogent scientific-philosophical theory. In

other words, Nabokov plays with science and the wholeness of intellectual thought,

however undercutting a scientific understanding of the essay. Texture of Time is not

science so much as it is a parody of science, that panders to the fetish for intellectual

investigations, which can never be satisfied by such a contradictory and incomplete

text. Texture of Time is not even Van’s final word on the matter: Part Four is only a

first draft, sketched while Van is traveling through the Alps (Ada 442). Nabokov

misleads the reader into imagining that s/he could actually analyze the propositions of

the novel, and the given theories, as a serious scientific text. Ultimately, Nabokov

frustrates any attempt to find a “solution” to the problem of time, presenting a

Frankenstein’s monster of a theory that looks like a philosophical treatise but is not.

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.
 It is no wonder that this chapter has been a challenge to many specialists.

Texture of Time seems to be another of Nabokov’s conundrum formed by tidbits of

texts and arguments, being, ultimately, a puzzle with non-matching pieces. Accepting,

therefore, the variety and inconclusiveness of this chapter is a condition sine qua non

for its assessment.

Nathalia Saliba Dias, Berlin

Dias, Nathalia Saliba. “Texture of Time: Sources and Problems.” The Nabokovian, n. 76 (Fall 2018), edited by
Priscilla Meyer. The Nabokovian. Web. 7 Apr. 2019.