Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0007556, Sat, 8 Feb 2003 09:20:10 -0800

Subject
VN Sightings Compilation
Date
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From: Sandy P. Klein <spklein52@hotmail.com>


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3099983&thesection=entertainment&th
subsection=music

Saturday February 08, 2003

08.02.2003 - Lou Reed's new album, The Raven, sets the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe
to music. But disasters can happen when rock musicians mess with literature,
writes STEVE JELBERT.

Despite the obvious appeal a career in music holds over juggling with the
written word (pro: better money, more opportunities for casual sex, less risk of
facing probing artistic questions afterwards; contra: see above), rock musicians
remain fascinated by the cultural longevity of written works.

Lou Reed's latest record is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, finally
providing some proper recognition for this enduring American classic. This from
a man whose best-loved band, the Velvet Underground, took their name from a pulp
paperback about suburban sex games found on a New York sidewalk by a friend.

Hmm, even Homer Simpson has been there, done The Raven, in a Halloween special.
And can we wholly trust a man who once helped to pen a few tunes for a "concept
album" by Kiss?

Reed, who went to university where he drank with poet Delmore Schwartz and may
also have studied, is at least qualified to have a go. He is one of the few rock
lyricists whose work has been deemed worthy of publication by someone else.

The literate dabbling with great works might not lead to great art, but the
intentions are usually sincere. More embarrassing are attempts to show a veneer
of sophistication through name-dropping.

Sting is always a safe bet for laughs, but never forget that Don't Stand So
Close to Me, the former teacher's warning about frisky fifth-formers, featured
the immortal clunker "like the old man in that book by Nabokov". Perhaps
"Woodhead" didn't rhyme. [...]

- INDEPENDENT

* Lou Reed's The Raven is out now.



_______________________________________________________________________________________
FORWARD

Love in a Cold Climate

THE AUTHOR OF 'LEAVING KATYA' ASKS WHY, AGAINST ALL THE ODDS, RUSSIAN
WOMEN AND JEWISH MEN KEEP TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK

By PAUL GREENBERG

At some point in the course of my post-Soviet marriage, it was pointed out
to me that I had a weak character. It came out subtly at first, merely an
aside, something like, "While you're up can you get the butter, and by the
way, you have a weak character." Where had this come from? I wondered.
Was my wife, brand-new to America, incorrectly labeling the natural
pliability of a New York Jewish male as simply weak? Was the angst of
being 24 years old and married and poor reducing me to emotional rubble
and making me weak? Or maybe I was just weak. Maybe I had a weak character.

Whatever the case, once the concept of my weak character had been introduced
into our marriage, it took a regular seat at our tiny dinner table. Before
long it became a sleepover guest, and eventually it moved in and kicked me
out of the house altogether. My wife and I parted a year after her
immigration. She stayed in New York. I moved to Russia. I took a job
teaching Russian journalists how to make upbeat, American-style TV
newscasts.

My new work afforded plenty of time to ruminate on the weakness of my
character. There were many long flights. I landed in cold, industrial
Siberian towns where the snow turned black before it hit the ground.
Provincial bosses hosted me at banquets and cajoled me into dancing the
tango with the local anchorwoman. I was bullied into drinking more vodka
than I cared to. After my head had cleared, I would make my excuses, claw
my way back to my hotel room, double-lock my door and return to the only
clear sense I had of myself: a growing collection of short stories about
Russian-American love that would eventually become a novel called "Leaving
Katya."

It was only when I started to map out on paper what had happened with my
wife that I started to see the peculiar jam I'd gotten my poor, weak
character into. I am from a family of Upper West Side shrinks. Before my
Russia Phase began I was raised with a psychiatric take on "character." I
was assured it was an indefinable, mutable sort of thing. You had an
insecurity ^ you agonized over it, you traced it back to its source with a
shrink of your own and then, step by step, you remade it, like a roofer
laying down new shingles.

"Yerunda," say the Russians. Nonsense.

As I traveled to increasingly remote corners of the former Soviet Union I
came to see that the place was the perfect foil for this way of thinking.
Shrinks, therapy, Freud ^ none of it has any standing in Russia (it was,
after all, Vladimir Nabokov who referred to Freud as "that Viennese
quack"). In fact, the whole Russian idea of "character" seems more akin to
the way our great-grandfathers might have conceived of it. It is at one
time honor, reputation, courage and the ability to stay the course. It is
manifested in Russian male behavior through a whole array of casual
gestures. Men still hold their hands out to help their dates skip over
puddles. They still keep to the street side of the sidewalk, protecting
their women from passing dangers. They get in fights. Alexander Pushkin,
the sensitive poet whom almost every Russian male, consciously or
unconsciously, seeks to emulate, fought 20 duels before dying at the ripe
old age of 37. [...]

__________________________________________________________________________

[pravda_logo_down.gif]

To the 70th birthday of Rodion Shchedrin

The world press calls Rodion Shchedrin "one of the most prominent Russian
composers of the past 50 years," and his compositions "the most playable
in the world" (according to the information of the agency Sikorsky,
Shchedrin's "Carmen Suite" is played somewhere on the planet every day).
His premieres feature star musicians, his ballets involve the magnificent
Maya Plisetskaya, and ballet costumes for his plays are made by Pierre
Cardin.

Rodion Shchedrin was born on December 16th, 1932, to a family of
professional musicians. Nevertheless, he wasn't much interested in music
as a child. Then came the war and the evacuation, and musical lessons were
arranged only after the family had returned to Moscow. Shchedrin became a
pupil of the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory.

[...]

Today, Shchedrin lives and works in Germany. A member of the Bavarian
Music Academy, he keeps stirring up the music circles now and again. In
1994, he and Rostropovich wrote an opera called "Lolita," based on the
book by Nabokov. Staged in Stockholm, the opera was a real scandal in the
music world. It will premiere in Russia in 2003. In the philharmonic
season of 2001-2002, Shchedrin was chosen Composer of the Year as a member
of the Pittsburgh Symphonic Orchestra.

In order to honour the artist on his 70th anniversary, Moscow and St.
Petersburg both held festivals called "Rodion Shchedrin. A Self-portrait,"
which took place between December 2nd and 12th.