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Re: borrowed from Vladimir Nabokov¹s Loli ta ...
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Re: [NABOKV-L] borrowed from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita ...S K-B: Am I alone in finding this review [TOME RAIDER: All About Lulu] unsatisfactory? Any modern novelist writing about "under-age" sex can hardly avoid _some_ (possibly a lot of) influence from VN's Lolita; ditto with "incest" and Ada. Evison is slated as "derivative" at one stage [...] Insofar as Evison's _style_ is inspired by VN's, that's to be praised. Updike and others have been similarly motivated; they may never match the master, but name a better role-model. Let's not use "derivative" as a curse, belittling a young writer early in his career.
JM: I share Stan's views. I just finished reading Ruth Rendell's 1998 crime novel, "A Sight for Sore Eyes", in which she writes about a Red Admiral and this "catastrophe butterfly" appears twice in connection with a violent death. Even after comparing this ominous fluttering, in Rendell, with VN's choice of a Vanessa in "Pale Fire", I found there was nothing else in common bt her novel and VN's books.
Butterflies and popular beliefs related to them, sibling incest, oedipal issues, unreliable narrators and quirky characters ( no lack of these in Rendell, and she is often clinically precise and compassionate!) are not VN's exclusive domain, nor are these his trade-mark - although sometimes reductive critics seem to consider it so. "Derivative" should not be a curse.
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JM: I share Stan's views. I just finished reading Ruth Rendell's 1998 crime novel, "A Sight for Sore Eyes", in which she writes about a Red Admiral and this "catastrophe butterfly" appears twice in connection with a violent death. Even after comparing this ominous fluttering, in Rendell, with VN's choice of a Vanessa in "Pale Fire", I found there was nothing else in common bt her novel and VN's books.
Butterflies and popular beliefs related to them, sibling incest, oedipal issues, unreliable narrators and quirky characters ( no lack of these in Rendell, and she is often clinically precise and compassionate!) are not VN's exclusive domain, nor are these his trade-mark - although sometimes reductive critics seem to consider it so. "Derivative" should not be a curse.
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/