A Tricky Subject: Nabokov's Blues

"White butterflies turn lavender as they / Pass through its shade where gently seems to sway / The phantom of my little daughter's swing" (Nabokov 35)

Reading through chapter two of Nabokov's Blues, I couldn't help but constantly make connections between John Shade's daughter and the Blue buttererflies who, "when their flashier cousins are set distractingly alongside them, it is clear that they aren't the most eye-catching of Lepidoptera, but it is unfair to say they are drab. their beauty is rather of the subtle sort, invented by nature in ove of her understated moods. They are, perhaps, an aquired taste but one well worth acquiring." (Johnson and Coates 45). As I read this, I found myself recalling the following snatches from Pale Fire: "She may not be a beauty, but she's cute." and "white children of her age / Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage / That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime, / My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time / A bent charwoman with slop pail and broom" (44). Nabokov's Blues seemed to feel that Nobokov did indeed find beauty to be an esential component to life. They note that he determined that "the blue color of the males is in addition epigamic; that is, it serves to attract females of the appropriate species, one of the most important evolutionary functions of the gorgeous colors of most butterflies." (46) Tragically, Shade's daughter was not favored by evolution and like a small brown chrysalis, she allowed herself to break from the limb of life and gently fall to death.

This comparison continued for me as I learned that Blue butterflies are often "brown, copper, gray, silver, or even white", none of which are extraordinarily appealing. In fact, I distinctly recall my confusion as a child as I gazed at a small dark-brown butterfly. I could not reconcile in my mind how a creature whose key function was beauty could be present in nature without it's beauty. I could see no functional purpose for the beast and could only contemplate my overwhelming disappointment as I gazed upon it. I felt somehow cheated. Butterfly sightings were an irregular occurance in my yard, and as such, each newcomer was greated with the overwhelming joy of a stalker whose victim has just returned from vacation. These beautiful creatures were loving caught and kept in an old Costco peanutbutter jar to be lovingly gazed on until mother deemed it unsafe for their health. . . . . to be be continued