Subject
Re: Nabokov, Fitzgerald & Anti-Semitism (fwd)
Date
Body
My view has always been that to read writers who were anti-Semitic is to
triumph over them. What could have displeased Trollope more than to have
someone like me reading his virulently anti-Semitic novels with great
pleasure and some amusement. Ezra Pound's Cantos ought to be translated in
Yiddish!
To write off the writings of Eliot and Fitzgerald, and Shakespeare
(Merchant of Venice) because they're not politically correct is to diminish
the literary universe. Their prejudices are defects, of course, but only
important if we allow them to be (by supposing that anti-Semitic attitudes
are reasonable or interesting).
There is a tawdriness to the Israelis' problem about having their
orchestra play Wagner. Worse, it lets Wagner win.
I like to think that VN was larger in his views than the
application of such a litmus test would suggest.
David R. Slavitt-- Phone: (215) 382-3994; fax: (215) 382- 8837
triumph over them. What could have displeased Trollope more than to have
someone like me reading his virulently anti-Semitic novels with great
pleasure and some amusement. Ezra Pound's Cantos ought to be translated in
Yiddish!
To write off the writings of Eliot and Fitzgerald, and Shakespeare
(Merchant of Venice) because they're not politically correct is to diminish
the literary universe. Their prejudices are defects, of course, but only
important if we allow them to be (by supposing that anti-Semitic attitudes
are reasonable or interesting).
There is a tawdriness to the Israelis' problem about having their
orchestra play Wagner. Worse, it lets Wagner win.
I like to think that VN was larger in his views than the
application of such a litmus test would suggest.
David R. Slavitt-- Phone: (215) 382-3994; fax: (215) 382- 8837