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Chapter XVI "Conclusive Evidence" in New Yorker (fwd)
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
I agree with Don that not including the chapter in the published
version of CE was the right move. I do wish, however, I could have read it
a bit sooner since the article I wrote for Julian Connolly's Cambridge
volume compares two autobiographies which were published the same year --
_Conclusive Evidence_ and Stephen Spender's _World Within World_. I knew
VN must have been well aware of both Spender (who was one of Nicolas
Nabokov's best friends) and his autobiography but this unpublished chapter
contains the only written evidence of his "Spender awareness" that I know
of:
"Incidentally, it is curious to compare Nabokov's rather gruesome
impressions of Berlin between the two wars with Mr. Spender's
contemporaneous but far more lyrical recollections.... especially the bit
about 'relentlessly handsome German youths.'"
The only other passage that struck me as somewhat revealing is his
description of Sergei. As in the lines about Spender, here, too, VN cannot
help referring to Sergei's homosexuality even though his statement is,
ultimately, about Sergei's bravery and heroic death. I have to admit it
shocked me by its inappropriateness, even though we are all well aware by
now about how VN felt about homosexuality. His emphasis -- again -- on
being his parents' "favorite son," also rubbed me the wrong way,
especially since he may have been instrumental in revealing Sergei's
secret life to their father and thus contributing to the unhappy quality
of his brother's childhood:
"When I knew Sergei he was drifting in a hedonistic haze, among the
cosmopolitan Montparnassian crowd that has been so often depicted by a
certain type of American writer. His linguistic and musical gifts
dissolved in the indolence of his nature. I have reason to think that his
childhood had never been as happy as that of his parents' favorite son.
Accused of Anglo-Saxon sympathies, Sergei, an outspoken and fearless man,
despite his effeminate looks, was arrested by the Germans and died in a
concentration camp."
Finally, as someone has already deciphered it, I too believe that
"T. S. Elmann" is a combo of T. S. El[iot] and T[homa]S Mann. I also
thought it was interesting that in a more serious (or so it seems) note,
he compares CE to Tolstoy's _Childhood_.
Happy New Year to all -- and Happy Centennial!
Galya Diment