Subject
Re: Nabokov, Fitzgerald & Anti-Semitism (fwd)
Date
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EDITOR's NOTE. Charles Nicol, co-editor of two collections of critical
essays on VN (_The Fifth Arc_) and _A Small Alpine Form_ and author of
many studies of VN, adds his thoughts to on the above theme.
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From: Charles Nicol <EJNICOL@root.indstate.edu>
Cavitt & Slavitt seem to think that one should be big enough to
overlook the ugly opinions of others--specifically mentioned are
Trollope, Wagner, Eliot, and Pound, as well as Fitzgerald. It seems
to me that I can't avoid teaching Pound in my courses on Modernism--
he's such an organizer, such an influence on *The Wasteland*, etc.,
but it also seems to me that I'm avoiding a responsibility if I don't
tell my students that Pound is very controversial, and why.
But that's teaching. It seems to me that Nabokov has every right to
not want *The Great Gatsby* on his reading table. I just flipped
through it. Why does Meyer Wolfsheim talk like a parody when nobody
else talks in dialect at all, not even the guy on the street who
sells them a little dog? Here is the first sentence about him in the
novel: "A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded
me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril.
After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness." I
don't think you have to be politically correct to be offended.
On the other hand, Nabokov may have disliked the novel for other
reasons as well.
Meanwhile, Galya Diment asks a better question. Are the two homosexual
dancers in *Mary* a parody, and in bad taste? I'd bet that if
somebody asked the young Nabokov that, he would have answered that
no, there had been two young men like that in his boardinghouse. But
they do function as comic relief, and not in the best of taste. Yet
there are plenty of other little problems with *Mary*, which seems to
me pretty much an amateur production. Perhaps Moon in *Glory*,
apparently based on N's tutor, is a bigger problem, since his name
and his homosexuality both indicate his sterility; that is, if you
draw somebody from "real life," you shouldn't also attach a different
level of significance to the description. --Charles Nicol
essays on VN (_The Fifth Arc_) and _A Small Alpine Form_ and author of
many studies of VN, adds his thoughts to on the above theme.
--------------------------------------------
From: Charles Nicol <EJNICOL@root.indstate.edu>
Cavitt & Slavitt seem to think that one should be big enough to
overlook the ugly opinions of others--specifically mentioned are
Trollope, Wagner, Eliot, and Pound, as well as Fitzgerald. It seems
to me that I can't avoid teaching Pound in my courses on Modernism--
he's such an organizer, such an influence on *The Wasteland*, etc.,
but it also seems to me that I'm avoiding a responsibility if I don't
tell my students that Pound is very controversial, and why.
But that's teaching. It seems to me that Nabokov has every right to
not want *The Great Gatsby* on his reading table. I just flipped
through it. Why does Meyer Wolfsheim talk like a parody when nobody
else talks in dialect at all, not even the guy on the street who
sells them a little dog? Here is the first sentence about him in the
novel: "A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded
me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril.
After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness." I
don't think you have to be politically correct to be offended.
On the other hand, Nabokov may have disliked the novel for other
reasons as well.
Meanwhile, Galya Diment asks a better question. Are the two homosexual
dancers in *Mary* a parody, and in bad taste? I'd bet that if
somebody asked the young Nabokov that, he would have answered that
no, there had been two young men like that in his boardinghouse. But
they do function as comic relief, and not in the best of taste. Yet
there are plenty of other little problems with *Mary*, which seems to
me pretty much an amateur production. Perhaps Moon in *Glory*,
apparently based on N's tutor, is a bigger problem, since his name
and his homosexuality both indicate his sterility; that is, if you
draw somebody from "real life," you shouldn't also attach a different
level of significance to the description. --Charles Nicol