Subject
Re: Nabokov Exhibition at the Widener Library, Harvard (fwd)
Date
Body
In his extensive report, Ryan Asmussen quotes a letter Nabokov sent to
Robert MacGregor dated April 21st, 1956, regretting that it hasn't been
published. Here is the quote in question: "Pornography is not an image
plucked out of context; pornography is an attitude and an intention. The
tragic and the obscene exclude one another".
Nabokov must have particularly valued this statement of beliefs since he
had already expressed it in the same terms in a letter to Morris Bishop a
few weeks earlier. Fortunately, this letter WAS published in the
Selected Letters. Apart from the inverted commas framing the first
occurence of 'pornography', the only change is "one another" instead of
"each other" in the earlier version. Perhaps the two versions were
originally identical, and the editors of the Selected Letters should be
accountable for the correction?
Lara Delage-Toriel
Robert MacGregor dated April 21st, 1956, regretting that it hasn't been
published. Here is the quote in question: "Pornography is not an image
plucked out of context; pornography is an attitude and an intention. The
tragic and the obscene exclude one another".
Nabokov must have particularly valued this statement of beliefs since he
had already expressed it in the same terms in a letter to Morris Bishop a
few weeks earlier. Fortunately, this letter WAS published in the
Selected Letters. Apart from the inverted commas framing the first
occurence of 'pornography', the only change is "one another" instead of
"each other" in the earlier version. Perhaps the two versions were
originally identical, and the editors of the Selected Letters should be
accountable for the correction?
Lara Delage-Toriel