Subject
Re: Martin Amis: VN and homosexuality (fwd)
Date
Body
Perhaps in the passage Corinne Scheiner has quoted below, Amis was
allowing himself a bit of liberty with a phrase from a 1942 letter Nabokov
wrote to James Laughlin, head of New Directions publishing: "I have made
up my mind to get my best Russian novel (The Gift) translated and
published. It is about 500 pages long. What I would like you to supply
me with first of all is a good translator as I have no time to do the job
myself. I need a man who knows English better than Russian -- and a man,
not a woman. I am frankly homosexual on the subject of translators"
(SELECTED LETTERS, p. 41). The qualifying adverb, "frankly," especially
seems to suggest Amis's (rather libertine) translation of "translators" as
"literary tastes" for the needs of the quoted passage.
Brian Walter
On Sun, 30 Mar 1997, Corinne Scheiner wrote:
> -------------------------------------------
> Although NABOKOV-L's discussion of VN and homosexuality seems to have died
> down, I recently came across the following passage in Martin Amis' _The
> Information_ which refers to VN and "homosexuality" in a completely
> different manner:
>
> There was a silence. To fill it, Richard said, 'Has anyone ever
> really established whether men prefer to read men? Whether women prefer
> to read women?'
> 'Oh please. What is this?' said the female columnist. 'We're not
> talking about motorbikes or knitting patterns. We're talking about
> _literature_ for God's sake.'
> Even when he was in familiar company (his immediate family, for
> instance) it sometimes seemed to Richard that those gathered in the room
> were not quite authentic selves--that they had gone away and then come
> back not quite right, half remade or reborn by some blasphemous,
> cack-handed and above all inexpensive process. In a circus, in a
> funhouse. All flakey and carny. Not quite themselves. Himself very much
> included.
> He said, 'Is this without interest? Nabokov said he was frankly
> homosexual in his literary tastes. I don't think men and women write and
> read in exactly the same way. They go at it differently.'
> [Martin Amis, _The Information_ (London: Flamingo, 1996): 29]
>
> Amis has interviewed Vera Nabokov (_The Observer_, 1981 and reprinted in
> _Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and Other Excursions_ (New York: Harmony Books,
> 1993): 113-120) and has published an article on Lolita ("Lolita
> Reconsidered," _The Atlantic_ 270:3 (September 1992): 109-120). Amis has
> often been compared to VN and I think VN's influence can definitely be
> felt in the narrator's remarks on authentic selves. However, Amis gives
> no indication of where Nabokov may have made the remark attributed to him
> above.
>
>
> Corinne Scheiner
> University of Chicago
> clschein@midway.uchicago.edu
>
allowing himself a bit of liberty with a phrase from a 1942 letter Nabokov
wrote to James Laughlin, head of New Directions publishing: "I have made
up my mind to get my best Russian novel (The Gift) translated and
published. It is about 500 pages long. What I would like you to supply
me with first of all is a good translator as I have no time to do the job
myself. I need a man who knows English better than Russian -- and a man,
not a woman. I am frankly homosexual on the subject of translators"
(SELECTED LETTERS, p. 41). The qualifying adverb, "frankly," especially
seems to suggest Amis's (rather libertine) translation of "translators" as
"literary tastes" for the needs of the quoted passage.
Brian Walter
On Sun, 30 Mar 1997, Corinne Scheiner wrote:
> -------------------------------------------
> Although NABOKOV-L's discussion of VN and homosexuality seems to have died
> down, I recently came across the following passage in Martin Amis' _The
> Information_ which refers to VN and "homosexuality" in a completely
> different manner:
>
> There was a silence. To fill it, Richard said, 'Has anyone ever
> really established whether men prefer to read men? Whether women prefer
> to read women?'
> 'Oh please. What is this?' said the female columnist. 'We're not
> talking about motorbikes or knitting patterns. We're talking about
> _literature_ for God's sake.'
> Even when he was in familiar company (his immediate family, for
> instance) it sometimes seemed to Richard that those gathered in the room
> were not quite authentic selves--that they had gone away and then come
> back not quite right, half remade or reborn by some blasphemous,
> cack-handed and above all inexpensive process. In a circus, in a
> funhouse. All flakey and carny. Not quite themselves. Himself very much
> included.
> He said, 'Is this without interest? Nabokov said he was frankly
> homosexual in his literary tastes. I don't think men and women write and
> read in exactly the same way. They go at it differently.'
> [Martin Amis, _The Information_ (London: Flamingo, 1996): 29]
>
> Amis has interviewed Vera Nabokov (_The Observer_, 1981 and reprinted in
> _Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and Other Excursions_ (New York: Harmony Books,
> 1993): 113-120) and has published an article on Lolita ("Lolita
> Reconsidered," _The Atlantic_ 270:3 (September 1992): 109-120). Amis has
> often been compared to VN and I think VN's influence can definitely be
> felt in the narrator's remarks on authentic selves. However, Amis gives
> no indication of where Nabokov may have made the remark attributed to him
> above.
>
>
> Corinne Scheiner
> University of Chicago
> clschein@midway.uchicago.edu
>