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Fw: Fw: Nabokov & Rilke (one more time)
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----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Thacker
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Nabokov & Rilke (one more time)
[One more time]
Jacob Wilkenfeld writes:
In his lecture on Kafka, Nabokov says that Rilke is a "plaster saint" compared to the inimitable Czech fictionist. As an admirer of Rilke (as well as a steadfast Nabokovian), I wonder if anyone can furnish more information on Nabokov's contact with Rilke's poetry. I'm interested in whether VN's dislike for the poet is related to the possibility of his having read Rilke during the period of his strongest aversion to German [. . .]
I thought that a poet who deals with such carefully and (to my mind) originally rendered images and metaphors as Rilke would meet even VN's soaring standards for art.
Well, one would think so, wouldn't one? Like you, I characterize myself as a "steadfast Nabokovian" - and an admirer of Rilke. And, like you, I was perplexed by this "plaster saint" comment on first coming upon it. In the end, though, I think the comment has more to do with N.'s thinly veiled aversion to and contempt for all things German (see his comments on Mann, Goethe, Faust, etc., and especially in the Gogol book, on German culture in general). This for me is the human chink in the otherwise indomitable armor of his intelligence. Anyway, he may have had a point concerning Faust, even Goethe, possibly; but Rilke - it takes more than a little name calling to diminish that work. And in fact, in the face Rilke's accomplishment, name calling just looks asinine - even when it comes from our man N.
May Google help you.
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