Stardust Memories

In October 1976, asked to name three books he had been reading, Nabakov listed: a translation of Dante’s Inferno, an illustrated guide to North American butterflies and a book of his own, “The not-quite-finished manuscript of a novel”

Recovering from illness he had, in his febrile state been reading his not-quite-finished book aloud to an audience of:

“peacocks, pigeons, my long dead parents, two cypresses, several young nurses crouching around, and a family doctor so old as to be almost invisible”.

Last Tuesday the not-quite-finished novel was published.

Out of a Swiss vault. Thirty years after his deathly plea to his wife Vera to destroy it.The Original of Laura has been assembled from 138 index cards. Penguin has printed the book including the index cards which are covered in , scribbles, food stains, tea cup marks and Nabakovs greasy fingerprints.

This image is of Rue de Sebastopol in paris. I dumped someone elses objects and watched as people took things from the pile.

Agnes Varda in her film The Gleaners and I documents the french tradition of gleaning. In wine regions of France, where a limited number of grapes must be used to classify wine, the leftover grapes are cut off and left on the ground; birds, wild boars and human gleaners pick them up. These fallen grapes ar called ‘conscripts’. Benjamin describes a collector as a prince who rescues a beautiful girl; perhaps Litnianski can be seen in this light as a saviour in possession of these objects.

In an interview with Raw Vision magazine in 1994, Litnianski said he chose shells firstly because they are beautiful and secondly he had never been to the sea. All of the objects in his garden were, he said, shells.

Benjamin again on interior trace remarks

The original way of living was not in a house, but in a shell that carried the imprint of its inhabitants

Leopold Blaschka and son Rudolph Blaschka made 847 life-size glass plants for Harvard University, where they remain. More lifelike and more painstaking than a Dutch still life, these glass botanical specimens feature decaying leaves and decaying blossoms, visiting bees and fungal infections.

These plants are neither scientific-too singularly perfect to study; nor art-too much like copies to be anything other than kitsch.

These objects designed to aid classification of species, are themselves hard to classify. Originally called ‘scientific models’, now referred to as ‘the glass flowers’ their role has subtly changed since conception.

The models have rarely left Harvard, Originally a few specimens left by hearse, not by custom-made crates using NASA technology.

The glass plants have inspired acts of obsessive love. One of their creators described them as his life’s work, he was unable to go on holiday, he worked relentlessly (not even taking Christmas day off to go to Brighton as Auerbach does). The Blaschkas’ started off making jewellery and glass eyes; they felt finally they had found a craft worthy of their skill in the Harvard specimens.

The Blaschkas’ counterfeited botanical forms and modelled jellied delights: ruby petals, sapphire stamens and crosier of an emerald fern.

When visitors such as the Queen of Sweden came to visit Rudolph in his workshop, she was amazed that he worked in temperatures of 95 degrees-the windows and doors sealed so that no flicker of air could disturb the flame used to manipulate the glass.

Many others tried to visit and commission plants for themselves, or to discover the ‘secret’ method of making these objects. There were and still remain rumours that the plants were very easy to make-there was a hidden method.

In 1941 a professor at Harvard’s reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbour was to make the glass plant cases bombproof.

Pilgrims still visit the glass flowers and are instructed to walk softly, to breathe gently and to stay (as with the reptile house at London Zoo) away from the glass.

The glass plants of South America, the Royal gardens of Pillnitz and of the Blaschkas’ own garden at Hosterwitz are still growing in cabinets at the Botanical Museum of Harvard.

The platinum ring was finally recovered when her fiancé found it in a bird’s nest at the bottom of their garden.

Julia Boaler, 36, thought the £5,000 ring had been stolen when it vanished while she was taking a shower at home.

Miss Boaler and her partner Justin Laycock, who live in Gleadless, Sheffield, were baffled at how the pear-shaped diamond could have vanished.

Miss Boaler, project worker for homeless children, said: “I was heartbroken when my ring vanished and Justin was not best pleased either.

“I left it on the bathroom window ledge when I took a shower but it wasn’t there when I returned.

“I thought it must have fallen in the bathroom or even fell out of the window but it was a complete mystery.

“When Justin got home I told him what had happened and the pair of us searched everywhere.

“We ripped up the bathroom lino, pulled up floorboards and even took the panel off the bath thinking it must have somehow slipped through but still it was nowhere to be found.

“I tormented myself for months looking all over the house for it thinking that my mind must have been playing tricks on me.

“I repeatedly rummaged through drawers and lifted carpets and turned the car inside out.

“I even accused the window-cleaner of swiping it as the window was open, but he swore blind that he knew nothing and I no proof.

“We eventually gave up looking.

“A few years later we had to put the wedding off as I gave birth to our son Luis.

“Needing more space we found ourselves putting the house up for sale so I made Justin tidy up the garden and cut the trees back.

“He started to prune our big oak tree and noticed an old nest in the branches so he nipped up a ladder to have a look inside and found my missing ring.
“I was gobsmacked.

“The bird must have swooped down and nabbed it from the open window.

“It’s amazing the ring was still there but I’m so glad to get it back.”

Still engaged, the pair have now insured the ring and are planning to tie the knot in the very near future.