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Fw: [NABOKV-L] American writing; translation parrots; BS
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During a dinner party, a long time ago, I overheard a malicious comment about Jorge Luis Borges, that he chose to write in Spanish because this is how he could aspire to be "the greatest writer in Spanish", something impossible were he to write in English or in German. I'm only bringing this up now because it may illustrate a point concerning the category of being considered as " the greatest American, English, Spanish, French...writer".
I don't think that either VN or Borges wrote under the obligation to acquire international fame as "the greatest writer"... The Guinness records winners, or the theorists about an artist's "greatness" are usually motivated by gain or follow ideological and political motivations.
What theories lie behind the labelings: "great American writer"," greatest writer of all times", "greatest XXth Century writer", "greatest writer in English", etc?
SKB observed [on my comment that Nabokov did sound 'at his most "foreign" in BS….] that, since " Bend Sinister is set in what seems to be some kind of soviet or fascist police-state, your ‘foreign’ is remarkably well-chosen."
Let's hear what VN voiced in BS, through Adam Krug: "He saw the possibility of escaping from Padukgrad into a foreign country as a kind of return into his own past because his own country had been a free country in the past. Granted that space and time were one, escape and return became interchangeable. The peculiar character of the past (bliss unvalued at the time, her fiery hair, her voice reading of small humanized animals to her child) looked as if it could be replaced or at least mimicked by the character of a country where his child could be brought up in security, liberty, peace (a long long beach dotted with bodies, a sunny honey and her satin Latin — advertisement of some American stuff somewhere seen, somehow remembered)."
Also: "Lives that I envy: longevity, peaceful times, peaceful country, quiet fame, quiet satisfaction: Ivar Aasen, Norwegian philologist, 1813-1896, who invented a language. Down here we have too much of homo civis and too little of sapiens."
VN's satirical observations, though, are harder to place ( they were directed against Paduk and Padugrad only - but were they, really?:
"The constitutions of other countries also mention various 'freedoms'. In reality, however, these 'freedoms' are extremely restricted.Generally the newspapers of other countries are in the service of capitalists who either have their own organs or acquire columns in other papers. Recently, for instance, a journalist called Ballplayer was sold by one businessman to another for several thousand dollars...On the other hand, when half a million American textile workers went on strike, the papers wrote about kings and queens, movies and theatres. The most popular photograph which appeared in all capitalist newspapers of that period was a picture of two rare butterflies glittering vsemi tzvetami radugi [with all the hues of the rainbow]. But not a word about the strike of the textile workers!...As our Leader has said: 'The workers know that "freedom of speech" in the so-called "democratic" countries is an empty sound.' In our own country there cannot be any contradiction between reality and the rights granted to the citizens by Paduk's Constitution for we have sufficient supplies of paper, plenty of good printing presses, spacious and warm public halls, and splendid avenues and parks. We welcome queries and suggestions. Photographs and detailed booklets mailed free on application."
SKB: I suggest (with no claim for originality!) that VN, several years (hard to be precise) after his last penned-in-Russian novel could no longer be be classed as a ‘Russian novelist’ using the LINGUISTIC criterion. You never really lose a native language, but in exile you tend to lose touch with evolving nuances and idioms. The longer he lived in America and CREATED more-or-less exclusively in English...the less useful that “Russian” predicate applies as a writer..
JM: Yes, VN acquired the evolving nuances and idioms of his country of adoption. But he could not erase his past in Russia where he lived like "any normal child living in a trilingual family with a great library" ( I quote from memory, the lines must be in Speak, Memory).
VN always included his European experience in his writing, either by partially isolating it through characters like Humbert Humbert, Pnin and Kinbote, or ( and this is why, in my amateurish opinion, he was "an American writer") when he succesflully practiced his fascinating blend bt. old European influences and America's own.
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I don't think that either VN or Borges wrote under the obligation to acquire international fame as "the greatest writer"... The Guinness records winners, or the theorists about an artist's "greatness" are usually motivated by gain or follow ideological and political motivations.
What theories lie behind the labelings: "great American writer"," greatest writer of all times", "greatest XXth Century writer", "greatest writer in English", etc?
SKB observed [on my comment that Nabokov did sound 'at his most "foreign" in BS….] that, since " Bend Sinister is set in what seems to be some kind of soviet or fascist police-state, your ‘foreign’ is remarkably well-chosen."
Let's hear what VN voiced in BS, through Adam Krug: "He saw the possibility of escaping from Padukgrad into a foreign country as a kind of return into his own past because his own country had been a free country in the past. Granted that space and time were one, escape and return became interchangeable. The peculiar character of the past (bliss unvalued at the time, her fiery hair, her voice reading of small humanized animals to her child) looked as if it could be replaced or at least mimicked by the character of a country where his child could be brought up in security, liberty, peace (a long long beach dotted with bodies, a sunny honey and her satin Latin — advertisement of some American stuff somewhere seen, somehow remembered)."
Also: "Lives that I envy: longevity, peaceful times, peaceful country, quiet fame, quiet satisfaction: Ivar Aasen, Norwegian philologist, 1813-1896, who invented a language. Down here we have too much of homo civis and too little of sapiens."
VN's satirical observations, though, are harder to place ( they were directed against Paduk and Padugrad only - but were they, really?:
"The constitutions of other countries also mention various 'freedoms'. In reality, however, these 'freedoms' are extremely restricted.Generally the newspapers of other countries are in the service of capitalists who either have their own organs or acquire columns in other papers. Recently, for instance, a journalist called Ballplayer was sold by one businessman to another for several thousand dollars...On the other hand, when half a million American textile workers went on strike, the papers wrote about kings and queens, movies and theatres. The most popular photograph which appeared in all capitalist newspapers of that period was a picture of two rare butterflies glittering vsemi tzvetami radugi [with all the hues of the rainbow]. But not a word about the strike of the textile workers!...As our Leader has said: 'The workers know that "freedom of speech" in the so-called "democratic" countries is an empty sound.' In our own country there cannot be any contradiction between reality and the rights granted to the citizens by Paduk's Constitution for we have sufficient supplies of paper, plenty of good printing presses, spacious and warm public halls, and splendid avenues and parks. We welcome queries and suggestions. Photographs and detailed booklets mailed free on application."
SKB: I suggest (with no claim for originality!) that VN, several years (hard to be precise) after his last penned-in-Russian novel could no longer be be classed as a ‘Russian novelist’ using the LINGUISTIC criterion. You never really lose a native language, but in exile you tend to lose touch with evolving nuances and idioms. The longer he lived in America and CREATED more-or-less exclusively in English...the less useful that “Russian” predicate applies as a writer..
JM: Yes, VN acquired the evolving nuances and idioms of his country of adoption. But he could not erase his past in Russia where he lived like "any normal child living in a trilingual family with a great library" ( I quote from memory, the lines must be in Speak, Memory).
VN always included his European experience in his writing, either by partially isolating it through characters like Humbert Humbert, Pnin and Kinbote, or ( and this is why, in my amateurish opinion, he was "an American writer") when he succesflully practiced his fascinating blend bt. old European influences and America's own.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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