Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005809, Sun, 11 Mar 2001 12:50:56 -0800

Subject
The Nabokov-Wilson Letters Parody
Date
Body
In today's NYTBR a review of _The Neal Pollack Anthology of American
Literature_ (by Neal Pollack; tongue-in-cheek Anthology by a fictional
Neil Pollack who considers himself the greatest American author) the
reviewer mentions what appears to be Pollack's parody of the NWL:

In "Interlude: The Pollack-Wilson Letters," Edmund Wilson concedes that
Pollack is his better. "Your life of Tocqueville is remarkable, as is your
recent trilogy of short novels about Cambodia," the ailing dean of
American literature writes, confiding in a letter that begins "Dearest
Nealster" that his last book will be about Pollack "and the friendship
that we have shared" (7).

The reviewer (Jack Shafer) never mentions the NWL but I suspect that was,
indeed, Pollack's "model." The real Pollack is a young writer who does not
have a long list of publications. _The Anthology_ sounds like an amusing
book and costs merely $16.

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