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Nabokoviana
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The great gray New York Times Book Review of 26 March has an oddity. Packed side-by-side are reviews of four books that had at least a tad of Nabokov-relevance.
1. The Fig Eater by Jody Shields. Rev. by Judith Shulevitz (p. 11). This is a "novelization" of Freud's famous case "Dora"--converted into a murder mystery. The reviewer describes Freud's write-up of the case as "a work of maddening grandiosity and casual misogyny argued with a brilliance that seems to turn against itself as the story progresses, the way it might be in a Nabokov novel. The literary critic Steven Marcus has called the Dora study a precursor to "Lolita" (featuring a prudish rather than a promiscuous teenager), comparing Freud's unreliable narrative voice to that of 'the great modernist novels of the first half of the 20th century.'"
2. On the facing page, there is a review of The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics by physicist Julian Boarbour who argues "Time does not exist"--a thought familiar to readers of ADA. It is respectfully reviwed by Simon Saunders, a philosopher of science at Oxford.
3. On p. 8, is a review of Frances Kiernan's Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy (Norton, 845 pp.) VN was on close terms with MM and her husband Edmund Wilson and MM wrote an impressive early review of Pale Fire. Someone should take a look to see if Ms Kiernan has unearthed anything of interest to Nabokovians here.
4.Lastly, Robert Kelly reviews Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves which sounds to me like it might have some affinities with VN's stylistic playfulness. Further information appreciated.
1. The Fig Eater by Jody Shields. Rev. by Judith Shulevitz (p. 11). This is a "novelization" of Freud's famous case "Dora"--converted into a murder mystery. The reviewer describes Freud's write-up of the case as "a work of maddening grandiosity and casual misogyny argued with a brilliance that seems to turn against itself as the story progresses, the way it might be in a Nabokov novel. The literary critic Steven Marcus has called the Dora study a precursor to "Lolita" (featuring a prudish rather than a promiscuous teenager), comparing Freud's unreliable narrative voice to that of 'the great modernist novels of the first half of the 20th century.'"
2. On the facing page, there is a review of The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics by physicist Julian Boarbour who argues "Time does not exist"--a thought familiar to readers of ADA. It is respectfully reviwed by Simon Saunders, a philosopher of science at Oxford.
3. On p. 8, is a review of Frances Kiernan's Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy (Norton, 845 pp.) VN was on close terms with MM and her husband Edmund Wilson and MM wrote an impressive early review of Pale Fire. Someone should take a look to see if Ms Kiernan has unearthed anything of interest to Nabokovians here.
4.Lastly, Robert Kelly reviews Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves which sounds to me like it might have some affinities with VN's stylistic playfulness. Further information appreciated.