The Nabokovian Quiz

Of all the sites to find something about Nabokov, okcupid.com houses quizzes and Nabokov just happens to be a popular one. It's called the "Mad Nabokovian Quiz" and it tells you how "mad" you are about him afterwards. I'm 75% Mad Nabokovian- which is true, and reflects my grade in this class. The average for quizzers was 66%. Not bad considering he's mad, himself.
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-vladimir-nabokov-test

Transparent Things- the beginning

To better understand the novel, I have to define "transparent" or "transparency" for myself.
It is described as an adjective, but I'm not sure that that is the meaning Nabokov would've liked to have the word take on.

Conclusive definitions:
1.
having the property of transmitting rays of light through its substance so that bodies situated beyond or behind can be distinctly seen.
2.
admitting the passage of light through interstices.
3.
so sheer as to permit light to pass through; diaphanous.
4.
easily seen through, recognized, or detected: transparent excuses.
5.
manifest; obvious: a story with a transparent plot.
6.
open; frank; candid: the man's transparent earnestness.
7.
Computers. (of a process or software) operating in such a way as to not be perceived by users.
8.
Obsolete. shining through, as light.

I find the last definition to be very well put, speaking to our said author's novel.
"Obsolete" describes something as "old" or "out-dated", no longer in use. But to be obsolete, yet still shine through (as light!)- now that's Nabokovian.
Does Transparent Things speak to the question of paying attention to the "obsolete" details, allowing them to shine through as life markers or pivitol rites of passage; the meaningless becoming the meaningful? Or is the meaning still transparent to me...

Nearly every page houses line after line as metaphors for "transparency"-or, rather, transparent meanings for things we would rather complicate in our transparent lives.
"Person Senior had always had clumsy hands but of late the way he fumbled for things in the bathwater of space, groping for the transparent soap of evasive matter, or vainly endeavored to tie or untie such parts of manufactured articles as had to be fastened or unfastened, was growing positively comic." -494
Again, to define in order to put into context: "Evasive" as intentionally vague or ambiguous, "matter" is substance....
To translate: his old age has caused his clumsy brain to fumble for meaning, even though the "soap" was there all along- he "vainly" looks through the meanings already transparent, as to boast his humanly knowledge- comical to nature.

A quote more metaphorical in terms of transparency:
"Hugh wrenched the umbrella out of his father's hands so abruptly that the old man kept kneading the air" -495
A possible transparent meaning: his father's "kneading the air" is kneading transparency, he's looking for something no longer there, missing the transparent meaning. And, he dies soon after this event- coincidence? Probably not.

Paper Topic Ideas

I am really struggling with finding a paper topic that I want to stick with.
Ideas I have so far:

1) Lolita as the "Mother of Sorrows". I am having trouble narrowing this idea further- for example, would I talk about all the reasons why she had to die because she would have been a mother of sorrows (literally) at the end of Lolita? Or should I just spend the entire paper comparing her to the Virgin Mary and how this is title is applicable to her?

2) H.H. and Kinbote and their dealings with women their own age. They can be very sarcastic and manipulative with them (Kinbote and Sybil, H.H. and Charlotte Haze) to get what they want.

3) Writing my own commentary, index and introduction for the poem "Pale Fire".

...I think that's all for now.