Subject
BOYD ON: I. Ada'S Calabro, II. Sterile TRANSPARENT THINGS?,
III Joyce
III Joyce
From
Date
Body
EDNOTE. Brian Boyd addresses three topics that have recently come up on
NABOKV-L. I have labeled I,II, III and appended my comments re I, II, & III.
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: RE: Calabro, Sterile?, Joyce
Dear Don and List,
I
I think Dmitri's correct about "Calabro's aria" as a pun on Calabria, and
with "gambade" as deriving from "gamba," Italian for "leg" and close to
Italian "gambado" (a boot-like equivalent of a stirrup) I can't help
thinking it's a pun on the idea of Italy as a boot, with Calabria as the toe
(especially as the messenger has "one knee turned out" so that his/her
black-leather-clad leg looks like a boot held at Italy's angle of
inclination). It is certainly meant to recall, of course, the mysterious
dozen in the picnic in the preceding chapter, who could be "Gipsy
politicians or Calabrian laborers" (268.32) and who have an Italian air
(they consume "a modest colazione of cheese, buns, salami, sardines and
Chianti" [268.18] and are spoken to twice by Van in Low Latin). "But meaning
what, what?"
II
About Nabokov's late works as sterile inventions: Transparent Things indeed
has an unhappy hero and a pervasive lugubrious gloom, penetrated by the
occasional lurid streak, but it seems to me teeming with fertile inventions
of every kind. I remember meeting a distinguished novelist who told me it
was her favorite Nabokov novel. I write about the novel's opening, which
seems a particular triumph of inventiveness, in an essay forthcoming in the
Cambridge Companion to VN, edited by Julian Connolly.
III
Re Nabokov and Joyce: I remember after congratulating Martin Amis on his
fine contribution to the Nabokov centennial celebration at the Town Hall in
New York, that -as someone who had first published on Joyce -- I agreed with
him in his naming of Nabokov as the novelist of the century. We both agreed
that Ulysses was a greater achievement than any single Nabokov novel -
"though not without its longueurs," Martin rightly added - but that
Nabokov's overall oeuvre as a novelist was the greater. As Tom Bolt notices,
Nabokov compares only his English to Joyce's, and he is merely honest that
in this respect he cannot match Joyce, but then Joyce as an image-maker and
storyteller cannot match Nabokov. And remember Nabokov's response to Lucie
Léon Noel's account of his dinner with Joyce in Paris: "I find it refreshing
to be accused of bashfulness (after finding so frequently in the gazettes
complaints of my 'arrogance'); but is her impression correct? She pictures
me as a timid young artist; actually I was forty, with a sufficiently lucid
awareness of what I had already done for Russian letters preventing me from
feeling awed in the presence of any living writer." (SO 292) That is
Nabokov's sense of his position in the world of literature BEFORE he had
written Speak, Memory, Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada.
Brian Boyd
-------------------------------------------------
EDITOR's AFTER THOUGHTS:
I.
Mulling the thing over I wonder if the cavorting figure refers to a goat
rather than a horse--since the toponym "Calabria" appears to derive from the
root for "goat" whose capering is dance-like. Also I wonder if there is a
scence in Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN in which a messenger assumes the pose
VN describes (and joins in the girls country dance). Also, is there an
Onegin in ballet form? I had missed the earlier "Calabrian" reference in re
the infamous picnicers (which was, incidentally, Dr. Boyd's first appearance
issue #1 of THE NABOKOV.
II.
I agree that VN's last two works are by no mean "sterile." I look forward to
new Brian's article in the Connolly Cambridge. Also as an example of the
artfulness of TT, I call attention to a somewhat mangled web version of my
"Nabokov's Typographic Poetics" on the Petersburg VN Museum web
page--Nabohttp://www.nabokovmuseum.org/PDF/Johnson.pdf. SHould anyone
actually want to read the piece, check with me for a corrected copy.
III.
Re "Nabokov's response to Lucie Léon Noel's account of his dinner with Joyce
in Paris. Ah, yes, but keep in mind that VN's comment was made in long
retrospect.
NABOKV-L. I have labeled I,II, III and appended my comments re I, II, & III.
------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: RE: Calabro, Sterile?, Joyce
Dear Don and List,
I
I think Dmitri's correct about "Calabro's aria" as a pun on Calabria, and
with "gambade" as deriving from "gamba," Italian for "leg" and close to
Italian "gambado" (a boot-like equivalent of a stirrup) I can't help
thinking it's a pun on the idea of Italy as a boot, with Calabria as the toe
(especially as the messenger has "one knee turned out" so that his/her
black-leather-clad leg looks like a boot held at Italy's angle of
inclination). It is certainly meant to recall, of course, the mysterious
dozen in the picnic in the preceding chapter, who could be "Gipsy
politicians or Calabrian laborers" (268.32) and who have an Italian air
(they consume "a modest colazione of cheese, buns, salami, sardines and
Chianti" [268.18] and are spoken to twice by Van in Low Latin). "But meaning
what, what?"
II
About Nabokov's late works as sterile inventions: Transparent Things indeed
has an unhappy hero and a pervasive lugubrious gloom, penetrated by the
occasional lurid streak, but it seems to me teeming with fertile inventions
of every kind. I remember meeting a distinguished novelist who told me it
was her favorite Nabokov novel. I write about the novel's opening, which
seems a particular triumph of inventiveness, in an essay forthcoming in the
Cambridge Companion to VN, edited by Julian Connolly.
III
Re Nabokov and Joyce: I remember after congratulating Martin Amis on his
fine contribution to the Nabokov centennial celebration at the Town Hall in
New York, that -as someone who had first published on Joyce -- I agreed with
him in his naming of Nabokov as the novelist of the century. We both agreed
that Ulysses was a greater achievement than any single Nabokov novel -
"though not without its longueurs," Martin rightly added - but that
Nabokov's overall oeuvre as a novelist was the greater. As Tom Bolt notices,
Nabokov compares only his English to Joyce's, and he is merely honest that
in this respect he cannot match Joyce, but then Joyce as an image-maker and
storyteller cannot match Nabokov. And remember Nabokov's response to Lucie
Léon Noel's account of his dinner with Joyce in Paris: "I find it refreshing
to be accused of bashfulness (after finding so frequently in the gazettes
complaints of my 'arrogance'); but is her impression correct? She pictures
me as a timid young artist; actually I was forty, with a sufficiently lucid
awareness of what I had already done for Russian letters preventing me from
feeling awed in the presence of any living writer." (SO 292) That is
Nabokov's sense of his position in the world of literature BEFORE he had
written Speak, Memory, Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada.
Brian Boyd
-------------------------------------------------
EDITOR's AFTER THOUGHTS:
I.
Mulling the thing over I wonder if the cavorting figure refers to a goat
rather than a horse--since the toponym "Calabria" appears to derive from the
root for "goat" whose capering is dance-like. Also I wonder if there is a
scence in Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN in which a messenger assumes the pose
VN describes (and joins in the girls country dance). Also, is there an
Onegin in ballet form? I had missed the earlier "Calabrian" reference in re
the infamous picnicers (which was, incidentally, Dr. Boyd's first appearance
issue #1 of THE NABOKOV.
II.
I agree that VN's last two works are by no mean "sterile." I look forward to
new Brian's article in the Connolly Cambridge. Also as an example of the
artfulness of TT, I call attention to a somewhat mangled web version of my
"Nabokov's Typographic Poetics" on the Petersburg VN Museum web
page--Nabohttp://www.nabokovmuseum.org/PDF/Johnson.pdf. SHould anyone
actually want to read the piece, check with me for a corrected copy.
III.
Re "Nabokov's response to Lucie Léon Noel's account of his dinner with Joyce
in Paris. Ah, yes, but keep in mind that VN's comment was made in long
retrospect.