Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0019728, Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:52:41 -0400

Subject
THOUGHTS: Poor old man Swift
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Just a trifle I ran across while reading about the last days of Swift in Craik's "The Life of Jonathan Swift" (1894):

"Looking at himself in the glass, he was said to have exclaimed in pity, 'Poor old man!'."

I wonder if this provides the origin of Shade's variant line, "Poor old man Swift, poor --, poor Baudelaire." In which case, was John Shade also looking in the glass when he wrote that line?

On another topic, I found the idea Lish editing VN very amusing, though I agree with Jim Twiggs that Lish's Carver is almost always preferable to Carver's Carver.

Matt

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