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Dale Peck& the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
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Re: Fw: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
----- Original Message -----
From: sam schuman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
A good, pretty full, article about this book appears in the June 4 Chronicle of Higher Education "Critic at Large" section. It is entitled "Pecked to Death" by Carlin Romano. He concludes:
Dale Peck is not the worst critic of his generation. He's simply the worst to have his essays gathered in book form.
Hear, hear.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
.>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (37
lines) ------------------
> Hard to believe The Atlantic is printing such bilge-the revenge of the
> stupid really has infected almost every branch of literary discourse.
>
> GK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 6/7/04 11:40 PM
> Subject: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
>
> <http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop.gif>
>
>
> Hatchet Jobs,
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1565848748/theatlanticmonthA/ref
> =nosim/> by Dale Peck (New Press). In these essays Peck rightly
> eviscerates contemporary "bombastic and befuddled" literary novelists
> who have defined and adhere to "a tradition that has grown increasingly
> esoteric and exclusionary, falsely intellectual and alienating to the
> mass of readers." He excoriates the McSweeney's crowd and "the
> ridiculous dithering of John Barth ... [and] the reductive cardboard
> constructions of Donald Barthelme," and would excise from the modern
> canon "nearly all of Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo," and-while he's at
> it-"the diarrheic flow of words that is Ulysses ... the incomprehensible
> ramblings of late Faulkner and the sterile inventions of late Nabokov."
> He correctly maintains that in writing "for one another rather than some
> more or less common reader," th! ese writers have created a situation in
> which "the members of the educated bourgeoisie ... are sick and tired of
> feeling like they've somehow failed the modern novel." In his meticulous
> attention to diction, his savage wit, his exact and rollicking prose,
> his fierce devotion to stylistic and intellectual precision, and-of
> course-his disdain for pseudo-intellectual flatulence, Peck is Mencken's
> heir (although he's got to curb his lazy use of expletives). He writes
> that this collection marks the end of his hatchet jobs. For the sake of
> the republic of letters, he'd better change his mind.
> <<logotop.gif>>
--
Sam
Samuel Schuman
Chancellor
The University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267
schumans@mrs.umn.edu
320-589-6020
----- Original Message -----
From: sam schuman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
A good, pretty full, article about this book appears in the June 4 Chronicle of Higher Education "Critic at Large" section. It is entitled "Pecked to Death" by Carlin Romano. He concludes:
Dale Peck is not the worst critic of his generation. He's simply the worst to have his essays gathered in book form.
Hear, hear.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
.>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (37
lines) ------------------
> Hard to believe The Atlantic is printing such bilge-the revenge of the
> stupid really has infected almost every branch of literary discourse.
>
> GK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 6/7/04 11:40 PM
> Subject: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
>
> <http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop.gif>
>
>
> Hatchet Jobs,
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1565848748/theatlanticmonthA/ref
> =nosim/> by Dale Peck (New Press). In these essays Peck rightly
> eviscerates contemporary "bombastic and befuddled" literary novelists
> who have defined and adhere to "a tradition that has grown increasingly
> esoteric and exclusionary, falsely intellectual and alienating to the
> mass of readers." He excoriates the McSweeney's crowd and "the
> ridiculous dithering of John Barth ... [and] the reductive cardboard
> constructions of Donald Barthelme," and would excise from the modern
> canon "nearly all of Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo," and-while he's at
> it-"the diarrheic flow of words that is Ulysses ... the incomprehensible
> ramblings of late Faulkner and the sterile inventions of late Nabokov."
> He correctly maintains that in writing "for one another rather than some
> more or less common reader," th! ese writers have created a situation in
> which "the members of the educated bourgeoisie ... are sick and tired of
> feeling like they've somehow failed the modern novel." In his meticulous
> attention to diction, his savage wit, his exact and rollicking prose,
> his fierce devotion to stylistic and intellectual precision, and-of
> course-his disdain for pseudo-intellectual flatulence, Peck is Mencken's
> heir (although he's got to curb his lazy use of expletives). He writes
> that this collection marks the end of his hatchet jobs. For the sake of
> the republic of letters, he'd better change his mind.
> <<logotop.gif>>
--
Sam
Samuel Schuman
Chancellor
The University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267
schumans@mrs.umn.edu
320-589-6020