C.Kunin : "Something here
disturbs me - - most likely the cult worship of the true artist, that
whiff of Ayn Rand, if you'll allow me. You seem to be describing her
more than the VN I know. His was an aristocracy that didn't condescend
to democracy, but embraced it wholeheartedly. Who after all was the
"true artist" - - Lolita? or Humbert? I often think VN doesn't think
very highly of artists as a class of humanity."
JM:
Who is Ayn Rand? What kind of "cult
worship of the true artist" do you mean?
Sergey K:"In reply to Charles’s post about VN’s
elitism. One British intellectual suggested that the calculatedly
“difficult” idiom of 20thC English literary modernism was an
anti-egalitarian conspiracy to keep the common reader out. Lovely Joyce
and lovely Beckett, both arch-Europeans, are elitist; VN is democratic
and even populist in comparison to them. To be more accurate, VN draws
on both European elitism and American populism at will, and combines
them to produce the necessary artistic result"
JM: Shouldn't we
write of "Demagogism' or populism, instead of "Democracy", when
bringing up a contrast to "Elitism"? The sentence "VN draws on both
both European elitism and American populism"' similarly doesn't make
sense to me. "European populism" exists, also "American elitism". VN
never drew on "populism" except when in jest, but he was always very
clear about his embracing democracy "wholeheartedly".