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----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Bennett
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:13 PM
Subject: RE: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
Not much to react to, really. Burgess was, at least in print, generous with his praise for fellow writers, and he frequently said and wrote kind words about VN. I think AB's remark that "I meet him [VN] halfway in certain temperamental endowments" is absolutely accurate, and I think anyone familiar with the work of both men would agree. I suppose that some readers of this list will take offense at AB's concluding remark that VN was "unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe," but I don't think this was meant to disparage VN as much as it was intended to praise Joyce. AB held Joyce in the absolute highest esteem, as did VN, and, after all, didn't VN say something similar himself? (Something about his English being pat ball to Joyce's championship game.) Forecasting literary reputations is an uncertain enterprise at best, and who knows what writers from the 20th century will continue to be read and admired in the coming years? (Something the foxy VN anticipated in his famous "Fulmerford" quip.) If anything, I think Joyce's reputation had diminished significantly in recent years, at least since the "Scandal of Ulysses" brouhaha has died down. (And Burgess' reputation took its own hit during that little fiasco, as he was one of the champions of the discredited Gabler revision.) Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
-----Original Message-----
From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 3:07 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
EDNOTE. Reactions?
-------------------------------------------------------
From interview with Anthony Burgess // Paris review. 1973. Vol.14. 56 (Spring), pp.119-163.
<p.143>
Has Nabokov influenced your work at all? You've praised "Lolita" highly.
Reading "Lolita" meant that I enjoyed using lists of things in the "Right to an Answer". I've not been much influenced by Nabokov, nor do I intend to be I was writing the way I write before I knew he existed. But I've not been impressed so much by another writer in the last decade or so.
Yet you've been called an "English Nabokov", probably because of the cosmopolitan strain and verbal ingenuity in your writing.
No influence. He's a Russian, I'm English. I meet him halfway in certain temperamental endowments. He's very artificial though.
<p.144>
In what way?
Nabokov is a natural dandy on the grand international scale. I'm still a provincial boy scared of being to nattily dressed. All writing is artificial and Nabokov's artifacts are only contrived in the récit part. His dialogue is always natural and masterly (when he wants it to be). "Pale Fire" is only termed a novel because there's no other term for it. It's a masterly literary artifact which is poem, commentary, casebook, allegory, sheer structure. But I note that most people go back to reading the poem, not what surrounds the poem. It's a fine poem, of course. Where Nabokov goes wrong, I think, is in sometimes sounding old-fashioned - a matter of rhythm, as thought Huysmans is to him a sound and modern writer whose tradition is worthy to be worked in. John Updike sounds old-fashioned sometimes in the same way - glorious vocabulary and imagery but a lack of muscle in the rhythm.
Does Nabokov rank at the top with Joyce?
He won't go down in history as one of the greatest names. He's unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe.
<...>
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Bennett
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:13 PM
Subject: RE: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
Not much to react to, really. Burgess was, at least in print, generous with his praise for fellow writers, and he frequently said and wrote kind words about VN. I think AB's remark that "I meet him [VN] halfway in certain temperamental endowments" is absolutely accurate, and I think anyone familiar with the work of both men would agree. I suppose that some readers of this list will take offense at AB's concluding remark that VN was "unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe," but I don't think this was meant to disparage VN as much as it was intended to praise Joyce. AB held Joyce in the absolute highest esteem, as did VN, and, after all, didn't VN say something similar himself? (Something about his English being pat ball to Joyce's championship game.) Forecasting literary reputations is an uncertain enterprise at best, and who knows what writers from the 20th century will continue to be read and admired in the coming years? (Something the foxy VN anticipated in his famous "Fulmerford" quip.) If anything, I think Joyce's reputation had diminished significantly in recent years, at least since the "Scandal of Ulysses" brouhaha has died down. (And Burgess' reputation took its own hit during that little fiasco, as he was one of the champions of the discredited Gabler revision.) Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
-----Original Message-----
From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 3:07 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
EDNOTE. Reactions?
-------------------------------------------------------
From interview with Anthony Burgess // Paris review. 1973. Vol.14. 56 (Spring), pp.119-163.
<p.143>
Has Nabokov influenced your work at all? You've praised "Lolita" highly.
Reading "Lolita" meant that I enjoyed using lists of things in the "Right to an Answer". I've not been much influenced by Nabokov, nor do I intend to be I was writing the way I write before I knew he existed. But I've not been impressed so much by another writer in the last decade or so.
Yet you've been called an "English Nabokov", probably because of the cosmopolitan strain and verbal ingenuity in your writing.
No influence. He's a Russian, I'm English. I meet him halfway in certain temperamental endowments. He's very artificial though.
<p.144>
In what way?
Nabokov is a natural dandy on the grand international scale. I'm still a provincial boy scared of being to nattily dressed. All writing is artificial and Nabokov's artifacts are only contrived in the récit part. His dialogue is always natural and masterly (when he wants it to be). "Pale Fire" is only termed a novel because there's no other term for it. It's a masterly literary artifact which is poem, commentary, casebook, allegory, sheer structure. But I note that most people go back to reading the poem, not what surrounds the poem. It's a fine poem, of course. Where Nabokov goes wrong, I think, is in sometimes sounding old-fashioned - a matter of rhythm, as thought Huysmans is to him a sound and modern writer whose tradition is worthy to be worked in. John Updike sounds old-fashioned sometimes in the same way - glorious vocabulary and imagery but a lack of muscle in the rhythm.
Does Nabokov rank at the top with Joyce?
He won't go down in history as one of the greatest names. He's unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe.
<...>