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VN's Marginalia & Kafka's "Metamorphosis"
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The L.A. Times Book Review of Feb 25, p 21 has a bookreview of H.J.
Jackson's MARGINALIA by Melvin Jules Bukiet. Jackson's book is a history
of the "art" of scrounging comments made by readers in book margins.
Bukiet, who has written at least one humorous story about his
VN-obsession, remarks en passant:
"All Nabokov says [in the margin of his copy] about Kafka's
'Metamorphosis,' which he once deemed one of the four greatest books of
the 20th century, is "[T]he 'vermin' .. obviously belongs to the phylum
Arthropod but does this arthropod belong to the class 'insect' or to
that of 'spiderlike' creatures' or 'centipedes' or even 'crustaceans'?"
Where a lesser soul might consider poor Gregor's rank terror and sense
of inadequacy, we get Nabokov's inner entomologist. Any entry to a
genius' mind is welcome, and it does show the consummate particularity
with which Nabokov apprehended the world."
DBJ
Jackson's MARGINALIA by Melvin Jules Bukiet. Jackson's book is a history
of the "art" of scrounging comments made by readers in book margins.
Bukiet, who has written at least one humorous story about his
VN-obsession, remarks en passant:
"All Nabokov says [in the margin of his copy] about Kafka's
'Metamorphosis,' which he once deemed one of the four greatest books of
the 20th century, is "[T]he 'vermin' .. obviously belongs to the phylum
Arthropod but does this arthropod belong to the class 'insect' or to
that of 'spiderlike' creatures' or 'centipedes' or even 'crustaceans'?"
Where a lesser soul might consider poor Gregor's rank terror and sense
of inadequacy, we get Nabokov's inner entomologist. Any entry to a
genius' mind is welcome, and it does show the consummate particularity
with which Nabokov apprehended the world."
DBJ