The Aurelian
"The Aurelian" is a
The Atlantic Monthly in 1941. The Aurelian is included in Nine Stories and Nabokov's Dozen
.
Plot summary
The
East Tibet[1]
). At last, by cheating a customer, he makes enough money to follow his dream, and prepares to abandon his wife and his business. As he departs, however, he suffers a second and fatal stroke. The narrator assures the reader that Pilgram has achieved a state of happiness in which he is visiting all the places he ever dreamt of and seeing “all the glorious bugs he had longed to see”.
Comments
While many of Nabokov’s writings refer to butterflies, they achieve their strongest literary treatment in this short story, and in Speak, Memory, The Gift, and Ada. In this case, Pilgram is a dreamer and lives in his inner world, and is eventually overwhelmed by his obsession. Pilgram’s journey takes him from his pupa-like condition to a golden, "aurelian" threshold before he enters into a different state as he undergoes his metamorphosis. His death represents an example of Nabokov's theme of potustoronnost (transcendence, or reaching toward another world).
References
- ^ Dieter E. Zimmer. Chinese Rhubarb and Caterpillars Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Investigation about Father Dejean
External links
- Atlantic Monthly Company: The Aurelian (text)
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