On 1/12/07 07:24, "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@HOTMAIL.COM> forwarded:
ANGLICIZING EL INGENIOSO HIDALGO
NABOKOV ONLY GRUDGINGLY RESPECTED IT, ...
Sandy: hardly a fair summary of VN’s Lectures on Don Quixote (Harvest/HBJ, 1983)?
This deep, detailed critical study (some 200 pages) must be read through thoughtfully rather than cherry-picked for the sour sound-bites!
Fredson Bowers’ Editor’s Preface points to VN’s agreement with Harry Levin’s opinion that DQ ‘was the logical starting point for discussing the development of the novel.’ This helps explain the enormous effort VN devoted to analysing this work. Guy Davenport’s Foreword explains the context for VN’s reported delight in ‘tearing apart Don Quixote, a cruel and crude old book, before 600 students in Memorial Hall, much to the horror and embarrassment of some of my more conservative colleagues.’ Davenport continues, ‘Tear it apart he did, for good critical reasons, but he also put it back together.’ (My bold emphasis.)
The opening quotation ends with a puzzling
BUT DON QUIXOTE IS STILL THE BOOK THAT TRANSLATORS TEST THEMSELVES AGAINST.
That BUT has no opposing, logical disjunction (as any decent BUT deserves) between VN’s ‘grudging’ respect, and the popular challenge of translating DQ into English. Rather, in sweeping away the over-sentimental accretions to Cervante’s characters, VN has increased our interest in the novel. To reshape the citation nearer to my desires:
BECAUSE OF NABOKOV’S BRILLIANT INSIGHTS INTO BOTH DON QUIXOTE AND THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSLATION, IT IS NO SURPRISE TO FIND THAT THIS IS STILL THE BOOK THAT TRANSLATORS TEST THEMSELVES AGAINST.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Curmudgeon column at
http://acmqueue.org