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EDITOR'S NOTE: Another in NABOKV-L's abstracts from the Texas Tech
Nabokov Conference in April 1995.
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
The Nabokov-Wilson Debate: Art Versus Social and Moral Responsibility
Galya Diment, University of Washington
"It is difficult to imagine a close friendship between two people with such
different political and aesthetic views," John Kopper writes about Wilson
and Nabokov in the recent Companion to Nabokov (Alexandrov, 57). Nabokov
himself characterized his relationship with Wilson to Andrew Field as one where
there was "hardly a moment when the tension between two highly dissimilar
minds, attitudes and educations is slackened" (Boyd II, 494). There are various
ways to account for these differences, of course. There are issues of personal
temperaments involved, and those of professional inclinations. As one
Wilson scholar pointed out recently, Nabokov was, after all, "quintessentially
an artist and Wilson... quintessentially a critic," and artists and critics
often view things differently. Yet, it seems to me, it was Nabokov's ultimate
Russianness and Wilson's ultimate Americanness that may best account for
most of their disagreements.
Given these stark differences between the two men, it should obviously
not come as a surprise that Wilson and Nabokov disagreed, among other things,
on the role that moral and social concerns should play in art, in general, and
literature, in particular. What should come as a surprise, however, is that,
upon close inspection, the debate was not-or should have not been-as extreme as
it often sounds or is being portrayed. For while Nabokov's views on art
were definitely absolutist, Wilson's were not.
Edmund Wilson has not, in general, fared well in Nabokov criticism, which
tends to be rather partisan on the issue of the two men's differences. It is a
commonplace in Nabokov scholarship, for example, to assume that Wilson
envied Nabokov his success and his talent, and that his envy somehow poisoned
his reaction to Nabokov and his works. This view is very prominent in Brian
Boyd's biography, and a recent book by Gene Barabtarlo strengthens it even
further. "It seems quite likely," writes Barabtarlo, "that an ulcerous trace of
Wilson's spite toward Nabokov became noticeable by the mid-forties, worsened
over the years, and turned especially acute after Lolita... because [Wilson]
thought that Nabokov succeeded commercially where he [himself]... had
failed" (Barabtarlo, 274).
And yet anyone who is familiar with Wilson's journals and letters, as well as
with other writers' reminiscences about him, will find this interpretation of
Wilson's reaction to another writer quite out of character. Wilson could
be cruelly blunt and overbearing but to his contemporaries he was much more
known for celebrating other writers' talents, rather than begrudging them their
successes. Pritchett, who knew Wilson personally and who admired Nabokov
as a writer, was one of many who was quite convinced that envy had nothing to
do with Wilson's evaluation of Lolita: "Some have thought Wilson's distaste
for Lolita sprang from his envy of the success of Nabokov's book, but Wilson
was the least envious, most generous of men, as generous as the
forthright Dr. Johnson, more particularly the Johnson of Lives of the Poets."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Another in NABOKV-L's abstracts from the Texas Tech
Nabokov Conference in April 1995.
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
The Nabokov-Wilson Debate: Art Versus Social and Moral Responsibility
Galya Diment, University of Washington
"It is difficult to imagine a close friendship between two people with such
different political and aesthetic views," John Kopper writes about Wilson
and Nabokov in the recent Companion to Nabokov (Alexandrov, 57). Nabokov
himself characterized his relationship with Wilson to Andrew Field as one where
there was "hardly a moment when the tension between two highly dissimilar
minds, attitudes and educations is slackened" (Boyd II, 494). There are various
ways to account for these differences, of course. There are issues of personal
temperaments involved, and those of professional inclinations. As one
Wilson scholar pointed out recently, Nabokov was, after all, "quintessentially
an artist and Wilson... quintessentially a critic," and artists and critics
often view things differently. Yet, it seems to me, it was Nabokov's ultimate
Russianness and Wilson's ultimate Americanness that may best account for
most of their disagreements.
Given these stark differences between the two men, it should obviously
not come as a surprise that Wilson and Nabokov disagreed, among other things,
on the role that moral and social concerns should play in art, in general, and
literature, in particular. What should come as a surprise, however, is that,
upon close inspection, the debate was not-or should have not been-as extreme as
it often sounds or is being portrayed. For while Nabokov's views on art
were definitely absolutist, Wilson's were not.
Edmund Wilson has not, in general, fared well in Nabokov criticism, which
tends to be rather partisan on the issue of the two men's differences. It is a
commonplace in Nabokov scholarship, for example, to assume that Wilson
envied Nabokov his success and his talent, and that his envy somehow poisoned
his reaction to Nabokov and his works. This view is very prominent in Brian
Boyd's biography, and a recent book by Gene Barabtarlo strengthens it even
further. "It seems quite likely," writes Barabtarlo, "that an ulcerous trace of
Wilson's spite toward Nabokov became noticeable by the mid-forties, worsened
over the years, and turned especially acute after Lolita... because [Wilson]
thought that Nabokov succeeded commercially where he [himself]... had
failed" (Barabtarlo, 274).
And yet anyone who is familiar with Wilson's journals and letters, as well as
with other writers' reminiscences about him, will find this interpretation of
Wilson's reaction to another writer quite out of character. Wilson could
be cruelly blunt and overbearing but to his contemporaries he was much more
known for celebrating other writers' talents, rather than begrudging them their
successes. Pritchett, who knew Wilson personally and who admired Nabokov
as a writer, was one of many who was quite convinced that envy had nothing to
do with Wilson's evaluation of Lolita: "Some have thought Wilson's distaste
for Lolita sprang from his envy of the success of Nabokov's book, but Wilson
was the least envious, most generous of men, as generous as the
forthright Dr. Johnson, more particularly the Johnson of Lives of the Poets."