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Re: Coates review of Krushcheva's IMAGINING RUSSIA
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EDNOTE. From Coates's review. -- SES] Khrushcheva professes to love Nabokov, but she puts much more heart into thrashing him: for his "conceit, coldness and emphatic indifference to all us ordinary folks, unworthy of his genius"; for his "contempt of the Russian tradition of socially minded literature"; for his "heartlessness," his "unmitigated arrogance," his "vanity and airs" and his skewering of other writers; for his "lack of 'physical' heroism" in contrast to Osip Mandelstam, dead in the gulag; for his aristocratic birth and for much else besides. Nabokov may be the first prophet to be anointed with vitriol.
James Studdard writes in response to Laurence Hochard:
L.H., I agree with some of your evaluation of the book but I am constrained to believe that any author who calls Dostoyevski a hack, pamphleteer; relegates Oscar Wilde to a "writer of children's books," criticises his (O.W.'s) french; and for the 'look down the nose, denouement' say that Freud was a Viennese quack, might be thought of as an insufferable, arrogant, popinjay. I think it is rather naieve of Mr. Coates to even suggest that Nabokov is the first prophet to be anointed with vitriol. How about Jesus? JStud
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James Studdard writes in response to Laurence Hochard:
L.H., I agree with some of your evaluation of the book but I am constrained to believe that any author who calls Dostoyevski a hack, pamphleteer; relegates Oscar Wilde to a "writer of children's books," criticises his (O.W.'s) french; and for the 'look down the nose, denouement' say that Freud was a Viennese quack, might be thought of as an insufferable, arrogant, popinjay. I think it is rather naieve of Mr. Coates to even suggest that Nabokov is the first prophet to be anointed with vitriol. How about Jesus? JStud
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/