Subject
THOUGHTS: Confessions re: Wilde and VN ...inconsistencies
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J.Aisenberg: considering that if you're human then you're simply going to be inconsistent, because humans are always inconsistent no matter how great they are as artists [...]And the reason many people think his lifelong denunciation of Freud was weird and can't take it at face value is probably for two reasons: 1. its quite odd for someone to bitch so much so often so vociferously about something they think is so damned wrong; 2. the Freud he brings up in things like Lolita don't seem that much deeper than [...] not that I'm all that sympathetic to Freud myself, but then I don't feel compelled to talk about him all the time and design everything I write to deliberately repel those who do.
G.Shimanovich: Speaking of VN and "defects" I would love someone to write of how VN's style evolved from "The Gift" to "Ada". Or, may be, I should just reread both.
J. Studdard: There. Said. Done. If I am now to be ex-communicated, please be gentle.
[EDNote: I hope Mr. Studdard's comments will be taken with the grain of salt his entertaining list of favorites suggests. BTW, for those who may not have noticed, we made the quarterly EDSwitch on July 1, and I am now your humble servant for the next three months. ~SB]
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JM: Welcome, SB, to moderate a rather hyperbolic, List...
For Richard Rorty, the obsessive noisy animosity that Nabokov felt towards Freud was "the resentment of a precursor who may already have written all one's best lines", which, of course is another hyperbole, not to say a very curiously imprecise assessment of VN's genius, and of Freud's as well.
In his biography of Gogol, VN remarked that "The crudest curriculum vitae crows and flaps its wings in a style peculiar to the undersigner. I doubt whether you can even give your telephone number without giving something of yourself". Nevertheless, he insistently affirmed that his life was not to be mistaken for his work and that his characters "are outside my inner self like the mournful monsters of a cathedral façade - demons placed there merely to show that they have been booted out" - unlike Wilde ("I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.") ?
Like GS, I'm inclined to reread both, The Gift and Ada, but not to check any literary evolution since, for me, any old VN novel is always novel ( and I cannot say the same about most other authors).
Thank heavens I'm not an academic researcher ( nor a moderator!)
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G.Shimanovich: Speaking of VN and "defects" I would love someone to write of how VN's style evolved from "The Gift" to "Ada". Or, may be, I should just reread both.
J. Studdard: There. Said. Done. If I am now to be ex-communicated, please be gentle.
[EDNote: I hope Mr. Studdard's comments will be taken with the grain of salt his entertaining list of favorites suggests. BTW, for those who may not have noticed, we made the quarterly EDSwitch on July 1, and I am now your humble servant for the next three months. ~SB]
..................................................................
JM: Welcome, SB, to moderate a rather hyperbolic, List...
For Richard Rorty, the obsessive noisy animosity that Nabokov felt towards Freud was "the resentment of a precursor who may already have written all one's best lines", which, of course is another hyperbole, not to say a very curiously imprecise assessment of VN's genius, and of Freud's as well.
In his biography of Gogol, VN remarked that "The crudest curriculum vitae crows and flaps its wings in a style peculiar to the undersigner. I doubt whether you can even give your telephone number without giving something of yourself". Nevertheless, he insistently affirmed that his life was not to be mistaken for his work and that his characters "are outside my inner self like the mournful monsters of a cathedral façade - demons placed there merely to show that they have been booted out" - unlike Wilde ("I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.") ?
Like GS, I'm inclined to reread both, The Gift and Ada, but not to check any literary evolution since, for me, any old VN novel is always novel ( and I cannot say the same about most other authors).
Thank heavens I'm not an academic researcher ( nor a moderator!)
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/