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Re: Speak, Nabokov: putting words in his mouth
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Dave Haan: Ross Benjamin has won the Wolff translation award for Michael Maar's _Speak, Nabokov... as much as I enjoy speculative criticism, this seems overly ventriloquistic. Too much made of homophobia, paedophilia, and German influence ... some good stuff too, when collation doesn't get out of hand. But the overall impression is akin to Andrew Field's biographical approach... Yes, the public persona is often a mask, but what's uncovered here on its face seems but another mask, less well fashioned (but then it's embedded in MAtryoShKa ...)
JM: I had a similar feeling when I read Carolyn Kunin's quote from Maar, on the subject of "kindness". Maar affirmed that VN tried to discipline himself to be kind while, later on, "he gradually lowered his gard."
I'm doubtful if biographical data or wild psychological acessments offer useful information, or avoid "ventriloquistic speculative criticism" about an author's art (I'm prejudiced against "applied psychoanylsis"). As you said, below the mask there are usually other masks (like onion-matryoskas with empty insides).
However, while exchanging ideas about Eliot's "semblable/double" translation, I concluded that I was probably mistaken about the appropriateness of Eliot's interpretation.
A double or a twin mirror-reflection (as in the rejected lines by Kinbote, playing with "toilest",which Matt cited in the N-List) is, perhaps, preferrable to Appel's (and my own) choice of "fellow man" or "neighbour," given its context.
Baudelaire's dedication "Au Lecteur"must have left a deep imprint in Nabokov's mind because he often returns to it. The French poet dennounces hypocrisy, his own and the reader's (as one may surmise), while at the same time he invites him to share his fantasies and bold acts. I wonder at what age did Nabokov read Baudelaire. He was fully conversant in French since very little - but I'm almost certain that Mademoiselle ever read Baudelaire to her charges. B.Boyd's index in RY doesn't carry the name, although he informs us about several of VN's favorite readings in French while studying at Cambridge but I must search longer to be sure.
btw: Carolyn's comments in her last posting are well-summed up by her quote from TT. Like Carolyn's, Hochard examples stem from Nabokov's fiction.. Shade's kindness towards Kinbote, or Lucette's towards the Robinsons, share common traits but, to me, these aspects are almost masochistic or, say, limp and tolerant in excess - so I wonder what was the author's intention by linking this sort of kindness (excessive tolerance) to those characters who, perhaps, could fit in the role of perplexed victims, or of sacrificial lambs. Making noble Krug mad was not any kindness, was it? Nor Sebastian Knight's efforts to notice people with a limp, clerks and drivers towards whom he was anxious not to show how he really ignored them.
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JM: I had a similar feeling when I read Carolyn Kunin's quote from Maar, on the subject of "kindness". Maar affirmed that VN tried to discipline himself to be kind while, later on, "he gradually lowered his gard."
I'm doubtful if biographical data or wild psychological acessments offer useful information, or avoid "ventriloquistic speculative criticism" about an author's art (I'm prejudiced against "applied psychoanylsis"). As you said, below the mask there are usually other masks (like onion-matryoskas with empty insides).
However, while exchanging ideas about Eliot's "semblable/double" translation, I concluded that I was probably mistaken about the appropriateness of Eliot's interpretation.
A double or a twin mirror-reflection (as in the rejected lines by Kinbote, playing with "toilest",which Matt cited in the N-List) is, perhaps, preferrable to Appel's (and my own) choice of "fellow man" or "neighbour," given its context.
Baudelaire's dedication "Au Lecteur"must have left a deep imprint in Nabokov's mind because he often returns to it. The French poet dennounces hypocrisy, his own and the reader's (as one may surmise), while at the same time he invites him to share his fantasies and bold acts. I wonder at what age did Nabokov read Baudelaire. He was fully conversant in French since very little - but I'm almost certain that Mademoiselle ever read Baudelaire to her charges. B.Boyd's index in RY doesn't carry the name, although he informs us about several of VN's favorite readings in French while studying at Cambridge but I must search longer to be sure.
btw: Carolyn's comments in her last posting are well-summed up by her quote from TT. Like Carolyn's, Hochard examples stem from Nabokov's fiction.. Shade's kindness towards Kinbote, or Lucette's towards the Robinsons, share common traits but, to me, these aspects are almost masochistic or, say, limp and tolerant in excess - so I wonder what was the author's intention by linking this sort of kindness (excessive tolerance) to those characters who, perhaps, could fit in the role of perplexed victims, or of sacrificial lambs. Making noble Krug mad was not any kindness, was it? Nor Sebastian Knight's efforts to notice people with a limp, clerks and drivers towards whom he was anxious not to show how he really ignored them.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/