Paragraph on "Transparent Things"

Transparent Things. Well, I already did post an initial blog about this work, but I guess I can easily write another one, as there is a lot to write about! I will begin with the "like" question-- Did I like it?... Yes and no. It was hard for me to really get into this work. Perhaps it was the time I was reading it, it could possibly be that following one of the greatest works I've read, Pale Fire, and I think I was just hoping to read a work that presented itself more clearly. Certainly, Transparent Things DID NOT do that. However, discussing the work in class really made me feel more confident that perhaps I did understand what was going on more than I thought I did. A couple of major details did fly over my head but I hope we can get those tied down a little. Furthering the class discussion, our mention of how Hugh Person keeps returning to Switzerland, four times to be exact, and explores how memory works in the ways of recalling the past made me think of yet another Italo Calvino novel (I promise, I will eventually stop referencing Calvino) Invisible Cities. In this book, Marco Polo and Kubla Khan sit in the Khan's garden and the young Polo tells Kubla about all the cities in his empire. Many of the cities sound fantastical and soon, we learn that in fact Marco has been talking solely about Venice. Here is a small sample that, I think, isn't too far off from Nabokov... "As this wave of memories flows in the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira's past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls." Now, if that doesn't sound somewhat like the groping for memory that Hugh Person must have (towards the end of his journey) I don't know what does!