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Re: query: Nabokov on his Russian & English style (fwd)
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From: Earl Sampson (esampson@post.harvard.edu)
For an annotated translation of the "Postscript to the Russian edition of
Lolita," see _Nabokov's Fifth Arc_, eds. J.E. Rivers and Charles Nicol
(University of Texas Press, 1982), 188-94.
Galya Diment wrote:
> For my comments see below. GD
>
> From: helen schroeder <fe6y383@public.uni-hamburg.de>
>
> Hello!
> I've been reading Jane Grayson´s interesting book on distinctive features
> and developments of
> Nabokov´s English & Russian style ("Nabokov Translated" 1977).
> Unfortunately, she leaves the Russian quotes untranslated, so now I´m left with
> tantalizing allusions to the content of a quote from VN´s afterword to the
> Russian "Lolita":
> apparently, he not only sums up his view on the differences between the two
> languages, but also calls his own Russian an instrument with "rusted
> strings".
> Since to my (admittedly limited) knowledge he never made a public remark
> like that in English,
> I would very much like to read the whole thing.
> Would anyone know of an English translation of that afterword? Or a
> similar comparison /
> remark in a letter, interview etc.? Thanks very much!
>
> Helen
>
> ***VN often discusses his English in his letters to Wilson, where he calls
> it "imitation English" and "pidgin English" (NWL, 36, 39). For
> further discussion and references, see Brian Boyd, _American Years_,
> especially the chapters dealing with VN submitting stories to _The New
> Yorker_; Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, _Allien Tongues: Bilingual
> Russian Writers of the First Emigration_, Ithaca, 1989, and (if I may:) my
> article, "English as Sanctuary: Nabokov and Brodsky's Autobiographical
> Writings," _in Slavic and East European Review 3_ (Fall1993):
> 346-61. GD***
For an annotated translation of the "Postscript to the Russian edition of
Lolita," see _Nabokov's Fifth Arc_, eds. J.E. Rivers and Charles Nicol
(University of Texas Press, 1982), 188-94.
Galya Diment wrote:
> For my comments see below. GD
>
> From: helen schroeder <fe6y383@public.uni-hamburg.de>
>
> Hello!
> I've been reading Jane Grayson´s interesting book on distinctive features
> and developments of
> Nabokov´s English & Russian style ("Nabokov Translated" 1977).
> Unfortunately, she leaves the Russian quotes untranslated, so now I´m left with
> tantalizing allusions to the content of a quote from VN´s afterword to the
> Russian "Lolita":
> apparently, he not only sums up his view on the differences between the two
> languages, but also calls his own Russian an instrument with "rusted
> strings".
> Since to my (admittedly limited) knowledge he never made a public remark
> like that in English,
> I would very much like to read the whole thing.
> Would anyone know of an English translation of that afterword? Or a
> similar comparison /
> remark in a letter, interview etc.? Thanks very much!
>
> Helen
>
> ***VN often discusses his English in his letters to Wilson, where he calls
> it "imitation English" and "pidgin English" (NWL, 36, 39). For
> further discussion and references, see Brian Boyd, _American Years_,
> especially the chapters dealing with VN submitting stories to _The New
> Yorker_; Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, _Allien Tongues: Bilingual
> Russian Writers of the First Emigration_, Ithaca, 1989, and (if I may:) my
> article, "English as Sanctuary: Nabokov and Brodsky's Autobiographical
> Writings," _in Slavic and East European Review 3_ (Fall1993):
> 346-61. GD***