-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Brian Boyd and Nabokov's Uncle Ruka Dream]
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:51:35 -0800
From: Dennis Kelly <pugetopolis@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>


The Uncle Ruka Dream is probably a fake—it smacks somewhat too much of an 'insider’s joke' by Nabokov along the lines of Gogol don't you think? It’s like pretending some rich old aristocratic relative out of the past—makes a long-distance call to Nabokov from St. Petersburg to give him a hint for a winning Lotto number. Like Wilson once said—he couldn’t believe anything Vladimir said. And after Kinbote and Humbert Humbert—the idea of Nabokov as ‘reliable narrator’ seems rather far-fetched one might think. Perhaps I’m just cynical, but this Brian Boyd anecdote about a Harlequin-disguised Uncle Ruka helping his beloved nephew in The American Years sounds more like the “Magician’s Dice” being rolled tongue-in-cheek at Cornell, delivered in a voice of sepulchral mock-resignation, before Nabokov aloofly makes his grand Academe exit for a leisurely Montreaux Palace Hotel retirement. A rather classy До свидания ("da-svee-da-nee-ye")?






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