Subject
Re: Eliot & Nabokov (fwd)
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
I happen to like Eliot too. I think, as in other cases we have discussed
in relation to N.'s reaction to someone's anti-Semitism, it was even more
noticeable for him in Eliot's case because he did not like him to
begin with. His taste in poetry was, after all, rather conservative.
Also, I am sure the fact that Eliot became such an "institution" in the
late 40s and 50s, setting the agenda for both English and American
literary studies, did little to endear him further to Nabokov. His Nobel
Prize in 1948 probably did not help much either.
Eliot was far from being the only celebrated modernist (and post-)
poet whom N. did not accept. He also did not care for Pound or Auden, and
was likewise not a great fan of Mandelstam or, later, Brodsky.
In that he was not dissimilar to Joyce, whose parody of Eliot's Waste Land
is quite funny: "...I heard mosquitoes swarm in old Bordeaux/ So many!/ I
had not thought the earth contained so many/ (Hurry up, Joyce, it's
time)//... But we shall have great times,/ When we return to Clinic, that
waste land/ O Esculapios!/ (Shan't we? Shan't we? Shan't we?)"
Unlike N., however, Joyce did begrudgingly admit that Eliot was, after
all, an interesting poet.
Galya Diment
I happen to like Eliot too. I think, as in other cases we have discussed
in relation to N.'s reaction to someone's anti-Semitism, it was even more
noticeable for him in Eliot's case because he did not like him to
begin with. His taste in poetry was, after all, rather conservative.
Also, I am sure the fact that Eliot became such an "institution" in the
late 40s and 50s, setting the agenda for both English and American
literary studies, did little to endear him further to Nabokov. His Nobel
Prize in 1948 probably did not help much either.
Eliot was far from being the only celebrated modernist (and post-)
poet whom N. did not accept. He also did not care for Pound or Auden, and
was likewise not a great fan of Mandelstam or, later, Brodsky.
In that he was not dissimilar to Joyce, whose parody of Eliot's Waste Land
is quite funny: "...I heard mosquitoes swarm in old Bordeaux/ So many!/ I
had not thought the earth contained so many/ (Hurry up, Joyce, it's
time)//... But we shall have great times,/ When we return to Clinic, that
waste land/ O Esculapios!/ (Shan't we? Shan't we? Shan't we?)"
Unlike N., however, Joyce did begrudgingly admit that Eliot was, after
all, an interesting poet.
Galya Diment