Subject
Welch, Nabokov and Fitzgerald (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Serck L <L.Serck@rhbnc.ac.uk>
I was highly entertained by Rodney Welch's enlightening contribution to
the Nabokov/Fitzgerald query. I am impressed that he phoned Matthew
Bruccoli to ask him about this particular topic. I was so surpised at
Mizener's recollection because in my view, Nabakov is influenced by the
characters of Gatsby and Nick in his depiction of Humbert. The quest to
repeat the past, and dreams vulgarised by reality are present in both
novels. The obssessed narrator (I believe Nick is just as obssessed with
Gatsby as Gatsby is with Daisy) I think is also the influence of
Fitzgerald. Can anybody verify this claim? Is there any evidence to
suggest that Nabokov used Gatsby or Nick (or both) as a model for
Humbert?
Perhaps Rodney can give Bruccoli another buzz!
Best wishes,
Linda Serck
>----------
>From: Donald Barton Johnson[SMTP:chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu]
>Sent: 11 March 1997 21:22
>To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
>Subject: Re: Nabokov and Fitzgerald: (fwd)
>
>EDITOR's NOTE. NABOKV-L thanks Rodney Welch <RWelch@scjob.sces.org> and
>Matthew Bruccoli for the following item which sheds new light on VN's
>attitude toward Fitzgerald.
>----------------------------------------------
>Rodney Welch writes:
> In hopes of contributing something to this on-going discussion, I
>consulted an expert -- Matthew Bruccoli, a Fitzgerald expert who was also
>Nabokov's student at Cornell, and a friend of Dmitri Nabokov. (He also had
>a hand in publishing the Lectures.)
> I called him up and told him how Mizener's recollection -- "The
>Great Gatsby -- terrible. Tender is the Night -- magnificent!" -- had
>kept us scratching our heads.
> Bruccoli said Dmitri Nabokov told him that his father once gave
>him (Dmitri) an annotated copy of The Great Gatsby, and that if he ever
>taught American Literature, it would be one of the books he would teach.
>(Bruccoli pointed out that "those idiots at Cornell" kept VN from
>teaching the literature of his adopted land.)
> "So," Bruccoli said, "you have two completely contradictory
>pieces of evidence."
> How to resolve them? Did Mizener's memory play tricks on him?
> Bruccoli believes that Nabokov simply changed his mind about The
>Great Gatsby -- hardly an ordinary event, but not out of character, says
>Bruccoli. (According to the Nabokov-Wilson Letters, he changed his mind
>about Jane Austen once he discovered Mansfield Park.) Books either rise
>or fall on re-readings, and The Great Gatsby simply looked better over
>time. For Bruccoli himself, "Tender is the Night gets better all the
>time."
> I rather gingerly offered my own opinion, which is this:
>Nabokov's own literary tastes favored the English Romantics. (And, I now
>recall, despised most of what passed for "Realism.") In BB's bio,
>Nabokov's suggestions to a young writer were rather telling: he told the
>young man he didn't really know his tool, and advised him to pursue
>Shelley and Keats, among others. He may also have suggested Hawthorne.
>My opinion is that he favored the considerably more florid Tender over
>the stripped-down Gatsby.
> "I wouldn't describe Gatsby as stripped down," Bruccoli said (and
>I wasn't about to argue) "but I see what you're saying. Tender is the
>Night is richer." And he noted that Nabokov adored Flaubert and Proust
>and Joyce -- than whom few (Nabokov is one) have employed language to
>more purely artistic ends.
> Bruccoli casually recalled some of Nabokov's well-known strong
>opinions -- he thought Faulkner a fraud, could barely contain his
>contempt when Thomas Mann's name was uttered, and had no use for Ezra
>Pound, either.
> Another thing I couldn't resist asking Bruccoli while I had him
>on the phone: how true to life was Christopher Plummer's portrayal of VN
>in the PBS video? "Lousy. Plummer is a great actor, but he decided to
>play Nabokov as a Yiddish comedian." (For what it's worth, I liked it,
>but I never knew Nabokov.)
>
>RW
>
I was highly entertained by Rodney Welch's enlightening contribution to
the Nabokov/Fitzgerald query. I am impressed that he phoned Matthew
Bruccoli to ask him about this particular topic. I was so surpised at
Mizener's recollection because in my view, Nabakov is influenced by the
characters of Gatsby and Nick in his depiction of Humbert. The quest to
repeat the past, and dreams vulgarised by reality are present in both
novels. The obssessed narrator (I believe Nick is just as obssessed with
Gatsby as Gatsby is with Daisy) I think is also the influence of
Fitzgerald. Can anybody verify this claim? Is there any evidence to
suggest that Nabokov used Gatsby or Nick (or both) as a model for
Humbert?
Perhaps Rodney can give Bruccoli another buzz!
Best wishes,
Linda Serck
>----------
>From: Donald Barton Johnson[SMTP:chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu]
>Sent: 11 March 1997 21:22
>To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
>Subject: Re: Nabokov and Fitzgerald: (fwd)
>
>EDITOR's NOTE. NABOKV-L thanks Rodney Welch <RWelch@scjob.sces.org> and
>Matthew Bruccoli for the following item which sheds new light on VN's
>attitude toward Fitzgerald.
>----------------------------------------------
>Rodney Welch writes:
> In hopes of contributing something to this on-going discussion, I
>consulted an expert -- Matthew Bruccoli, a Fitzgerald expert who was also
>Nabokov's student at Cornell, and a friend of Dmitri Nabokov. (He also had
>a hand in publishing the Lectures.)
> I called him up and told him how Mizener's recollection -- "The
>Great Gatsby -- terrible. Tender is the Night -- magnificent!" -- had
>kept us scratching our heads.
> Bruccoli said Dmitri Nabokov told him that his father once gave
>him (Dmitri) an annotated copy of The Great Gatsby, and that if he ever
>taught American Literature, it would be one of the books he would teach.
>(Bruccoli pointed out that "those idiots at Cornell" kept VN from
>teaching the literature of his adopted land.)
> "So," Bruccoli said, "you have two completely contradictory
>pieces of evidence."
> How to resolve them? Did Mizener's memory play tricks on him?
> Bruccoli believes that Nabokov simply changed his mind about The
>Great Gatsby -- hardly an ordinary event, but not out of character, says
>Bruccoli. (According to the Nabokov-Wilson Letters, he changed his mind
>about Jane Austen once he discovered Mansfield Park.) Books either rise
>or fall on re-readings, and The Great Gatsby simply looked better over
>time. For Bruccoli himself, "Tender is the Night gets better all the
>time."
> I rather gingerly offered my own opinion, which is this:
>Nabokov's own literary tastes favored the English Romantics. (And, I now
>recall, despised most of what passed for "Realism.") In BB's bio,
>Nabokov's suggestions to a young writer were rather telling: he told the
>young man he didn't really know his tool, and advised him to pursue
>Shelley and Keats, among others. He may also have suggested Hawthorne.
>My opinion is that he favored the considerably more florid Tender over
>the stripped-down Gatsby.
> "I wouldn't describe Gatsby as stripped down," Bruccoli said (and
>I wasn't about to argue) "but I see what you're saying. Tender is the
>Night is richer." And he noted that Nabokov adored Flaubert and Proust
>and Joyce -- than whom few (Nabokov is one) have employed language to
>more purely artistic ends.
> Bruccoli casually recalled some of Nabokov's well-known strong
>opinions -- he thought Faulkner a fraud, could barely contain his
>contempt when Thomas Mann's name was uttered, and had no use for Ezra
>Pound, either.
> Another thing I couldn't resist asking Bruccoli while I had him
>on the phone: how true to life was Christopher Plummer's portrayal of VN
>in the PBS video? "Lousy. Plummer is a great actor, but he decided to
>play Nabokov as a Yiddish comedian." (For what it's worth, I liked it,
>but I never knew Nabokov.)
>
>RW
>