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[Fwd: Re: Nabokov's admirers: S. Millhauser]
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EDITOR's NOTE. No sooner than I had sent out my lament on the lack of
speciific info in postings, I got the below: factual, documented,
well-informed. This is the sort of thing that provides the basis of
meaningful discussion. As a trival example I offer the thought that
Millhauser's _EDWIN MULHOUSE_ was (I think) his first novel and
obviously owed much to VN. It is my impression Millhauser's suceeding
novels (while fine books) owe successively less to VN. Perhaps this is
the common course of events in a writer's career? Young writers who
begin under the star of a mentor (such as VN) tend to publish
technically flashy stuff and gradulally become more stylistically
sedate. Or, to put it more politely -- find their own voice. Or perhaps
yield to the siren call of agents and publishers who want more
"readable," i.e. commercial books.
-------------------------
From: Yannickec@aol.com
Indeed, similitudes between Pale Fire and Edwin Mulhouse are striking: (
the
biographer's obessions/ voyeurism/ light ) Millhauser gives
interesting
views via Edwin and Jeffrey on the metaphysics of biography. Among many
other
things, the narrator explains how biographies are bound to be
"romancГ©es" as
they unavoidably structure a life, out of a middle, a beginning and an
end.
"[Edwin] went on to claim [в─╕] that the very notion of biography was
hopelessely fictional, since unlike real life, which presents us with
question marks, censored passages, blank spaces, rows of asterisks,
omitted
paragraphs, and numberless sequences of three dots trailing into
whiteness,
biography provides an illusion of completeness, a vast pattern of
details
organized by an omniscient biographer [в─╕]." (p101)
(Another quote : (kinbotian?) :
For the artist creates the work of art, but the biographer, so to speak,
creates the artist. Which is to say : without me, would you exist at
all,
Edwin ? )
Cheers,
Yannicke Chupin
Paris-IV Sorbonne.
speciific info in postings, I got the below: factual, documented,
well-informed. This is the sort of thing that provides the basis of
meaningful discussion. As a trival example I offer the thought that
Millhauser's _EDWIN MULHOUSE_ was (I think) his first novel and
obviously owed much to VN. It is my impression Millhauser's suceeding
novels (while fine books) owe successively less to VN. Perhaps this is
the common course of events in a writer's career? Young writers who
begin under the star of a mentor (such as VN) tend to publish
technically flashy stuff and gradulally become more stylistically
sedate. Or, to put it more politely -- find their own voice. Or perhaps
yield to the siren call of agents and publishers who want more
"readable," i.e. commercial books.
-------------------------
From: Yannickec@aol.com
Indeed, similitudes between Pale Fire and Edwin Mulhouse are striking: (
the
biographer's obessions/ voyeurism/ light ) Millhauser gives
interesting
views via Edwin and Jeffrey on the metaphysics of biography. Among many
other
things, the narrator explains how biographies are bound to be
"romancГ©es" as
they unavoidably structure a life, out of a middle, a beginning and an
end.
"[Edwin] went on to claim [в─╕] that the very notion of biography was
hopelessely fictional, since unlike real life, which presents us with
question marks, censored passages, blank spaces, rows of asterisks,
omitted
paragraphs, and numberless sequences of three dots trailing into
whiteness,
biography provides an illusion of completeness, a vast pattern of
details
organized by an omniscient biographer [в─╕]." (p101)
(Another quote : (kinbotian?) :
For the artist creates the work of art, but the biographer, so to speak,
creates the artist. Which is to say : without me, would you exist at
all,
Edwin ? )
Cheers,
Yannicke Chupin
Paris-IV Sorbonne.