Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017671, Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:05:39 -0500

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SIGHTING: VN and comic books
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http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19851


When Words Collide




by Timothy Callahan, Staff Writer

GOOD READERS AND GOOD COMICS







In 1948, nearly a decade before the publication of a scandalous novel
which would make him a literary sensation in the English-speaking world,
Vladimir Nabokov began teaching a class at Cornell called "Masters of
European Fiction and Literature." As a teacher, Nabokov was notoriously
specific, using at least once, legend has it, a final exam which
included a single question about wallpaper described in a single
sentence in Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina."
Nabokov believed that the only way to know a story was to fully immerse
yourself in its fictional world. If you inhabited that world fully, you
would know the pattern on the wallpaper. If not, well, then anything you
had to say about the work of literature was suspect -- based on
generalities rather than specifics.
What happens if we take Nabokov's approach to literature and apply it to
comics?
What happens if we take Nabokov's opening lecture to his students and
apply it to ourselves, as comic book readers?
Let's find out. [. . . .]

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