Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017659, Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:37:37 +0000

Subject
Re: Albion and black albinos
Date
Body
Jansy: can¹t help immediately with lists of anthologies blessed with VN¹s
works, but can report that he flourishes in most of the FAMOUS QUOTATIONS
collections I¹ve come across. At our local library the other week I browsed
five or six such compilations. They were tagged in yellow ³REFERENCE ONLY.
Not to be removed!² so I started scribbling notes, which I placed in some
safe place beyond subsequent reach. One of the collections (Oxford Univ.
Press, I think) was devoted specifically to Lit & Lang aphorisms (or ³pithy
sayings,² he lisped!). Dozens of Nabokovian quips, which one has the feeling
were deliberately polished with such collections in mind.

Stan Kelly-Bootle


On 03/02/2009 16:13, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:

> Stan K-B [ to Suellen: "most helpful. Thanks. I¹ll re-read Updike¹s post-words
> on VN¹s Luzhin¹s Defense[...]The general feeling I register about Updike¹s
> [...] ³O, what a falling off ...² [...] complaint that he was just ³too damned
> prolific² i.e., lacking self-censoring discernment. Whereas, to my untrained
> eyes/ears, Nabokov just got better as the years rolled by. TOOL, I¹m sure,
> will verify this in spite of time tragically running out before his final
> master-building."]
>
> JM: I agree with SKB on "Nabokov just got better...". There is one quality of
> his that has not evolved because it remained a constant: his being emminently
> an author one reads, re-reads and starts all over again. There are thousands
> of fine and stimulating books that I'll never get around to read because time
> is so short and, at the same time, there are authors and books that one cannot
> just read once. Updike, for me, belongs to the "one timers", even
> "sometimers"category. Never Nabokov. While I pondered on "vita brevis" (
> preceded by "ars longa", unrelated to the tons of unread books) I noticed that
> for me it is exactly this feeling of "ars longa" that is so present in
> Nabokov and thanks to whom I feel a part of this particular "longevity".
>
> The "Nabokov No-Finds" (from SK's previous message) tell a curious story about
> invisible rivalries and prejudices, but this issue is certainly more
> complicated. The two (Oxford) Anthologies of "Humour" and of "XXth Century
> Poets" I consulted carry no Nabokov. Has it anything to do with The New
> Yorker's ,AM and other magazines policies on copy-rights?
> I remember an anthology organized by Joyce Carol Oates that includes SM's
> first chapter,"Perfect Past."
> Where could I find out about which anthologies in English included VN among
> American, English-speaking, novelists or the Russian poets and authors?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ..............................................................................
> ..............................................................................
> ......................................................................
> MR (Zembla-website): "...the author or his wife or son has control of both
> access and copyright for fifty years, i.e. until June 23, 2009. At that point,
> the collection will be open and the as yet unpublished Nabokov writings in it
> will be in the public domain."
> Andrea Pitzer: "Talking about the permissions issue...I was told that after
> June, copies of the materials--but not necessarily the originals--would be
> available to the public in some form."
> Stan K-B: "...the infamously mis-printed ³Sinner¹s Bible² of 1631[...]garbles
> the word ³greatness²[...] Warning to printers and editors: the Sinner¹s Bible
> crew, some claim, were hung, drawn and quartered."[...].
> ...................................
> "Now here¹s an interesting find, or rather NON-FIND: I¹ve just read Updike¹s
> long intro to the new Everyman Library composite edition of the Angstrom
> Quadrilogy[...] JU mentions many influences and counter-influences [...] NO
> VN, not a murmur but DRUM-ROLL ... Edmund Wilson [...] a quote from Nicholson
> Baker¹s memoir ³U and I: A True Story.² (Granta)³ ... In grieving for Updike
> [...] they would be mourning the man who, by bringing a serious
> Prousto-Nabokovian, morally sensitive, National Book Award-winning prose style
> to bear on the micromechanics of physical lovemaking, first licensed their
> moans.²
> Suellen Stringer-Hye: ...this is from the VNCollation#3 (March 1, 1994) on
> Zembla: 'And speaking of John Updike[...] he claims in an interview [...]that
> his new book Brazil "... should appeal most to anyone who used to be pleased
> by Nabokov's excursions into the semi-real. I'm not Nabokov, and there was
> much about his fictional worlds that's a little constraining, but I did love
> the attitude he brought to the art of fiction, a kind of detached, almost
> scientific wish to do something new with this form[...]" Brazil, according to
> a Financial Post article dated February 26, is only the second Updike book to
> be set outside of the U.S. The other was The Coup, "...narrated by a
> francophone dictator--who sounded like Vladimir Nabokov on Prozac'...."
>
>
>
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