Subject
Nabokov and Fitzgerald: Question & Answer
Date
Body
> EDITOR'S NOTE. Galya Diment (U. of Washington) who replies below to
Linda Serck's question is the author, inter much alia, of the forthcoming
volume PNINIADE, a study of the relationship between VN and his Cornell
colleague Marc Szeftel, the chief prototype for Pnin.
_--------------------------------------------
> From: Serck L <L.Serck@rhbnc.ac.uk>
>
> Can anyone help me with a query concerning the influence of F. Scott
> Fitzgerald on Nabokov. For starters, is there any evidence that Nabokov
> is influenced by Fitzgerald, and if there is, where can I find it?
>
> Cheers, Linda Serck
>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:30:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
I gave a paper a couple of years ago on Nabokov and Fitzgerald, comparing
MARY and THE GREAT GATSBY. Some of it is quite relevant to the question
posed here, so I will just reproduce a part of it here:
According to Arthur Mizener, Nabokov's colleague at Cornell and Scott
Fitzgerald's biographer, Nabokov considered Tender Is the Night
"magnificent" and The Great Gatsby "terrible." Nabokov apparently did
not elaborate on his evaluations of the two novels any further but his
judgment of The Great Gatsby is quite curious since in this particular novel
Fitzgerald treats the theme that was so prominent in Nabokov's own
writing: the powerof one's longing to return to the past.
Both The Great Gatsby and Mary or Mashen'ka, in which this theme found its
clearest expression in Nabokov, were written in 1925. Both were based on
largely autobiographical experiences.
Given the similarities between the two novels, Nabokov's attitude to The
Great Gatsby may appear somewhat puzzling. After all, The Great Gatsby is
arguably the best novel Fitzgerald ever produced, and even though it had
not been acknowledged as such immediately after its publication, by the early
1950s, when Nabokov and Mizener's conversation took place, the work was
already considered by many as one of the true masterpieces of American
literature. Mizener himself was so stunned by Nabokov's pronouncement that
he wrote it off as yet another example of how his colleague "delighted in
his own... violent opinions of other writers and liked to express them
where they would be most likely to shock."
Nabokov's harsh judgment of The Great Gatsby will appear even more
surprising when we realize that Nabokov generally exhibited an
uncharacteristically benign attitude towards Fitzgerald as a
fellow-writer. In addition to Tender Is the Night, Nabokov also liked The
Crack Up, a volume of Fitzgerald's essays, letters and notebooks, which he
described to Wilson in 1945 as "first rate healthy literature.... Rich
stuff, sane real stuff." Simon Karlinsky suspects that this attitude was
due to Nabokov's "personal fondness for Wilson, whose classmate and close
personal friend" Fitzgerald was.
Yet,there were obviously other writers -- Faulkner, among them -- whom Wilson
championed or was friends with but whom Nabokov absolutely refused to
admire. Furthermore, being swayed in his literary opinions by his personal
feelings for anyone is quite out of character in Nabokov's case. Nabokov's
father, whom Nabokov both adored and respected, had a life-long admiration
for Stendhal, Balzac and Zola, yet the son stayed firm in considering them
"three detestable mediocrities." No, "personal fondness" for Wilson, even
at the peak of their brief honeymoon as friends, had nothing to do with
Nabokov's general respect for Fitzgerald's work.
Why, then, was he so critical of The Great Gatsby?
[I'll cut it here so that everyone can answer this tantalizing question
for him/herself. The rest of my paper dealt with my answer to it.]
Linda Serck's question is the author, inter much alia, of the forthcoming
volume PNINIADE, a study of the relationship between VN and his Cornell
colleague Marc Szeftel, the chief prototype for Pnin.
_--------------------------------------------
> From: Serck L <L.Serck@rhbnc.ac.uk>
>
> Can anyone help me with a query concerning the influence of F. Scott
> Fitzgerald on Nabokov. For starters, is there any evidence that Nabokov
> is influenced by Fitzgerald, and if there is, where can I find it?
>
> Cheers, Linda Serck
>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:30:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
I gave a paper a couple of years ago on Nabokov and Fitzgerald, comparing
MARY and THE GREAT GATSBY. Some of it is quite relevant to the question
posed here, so I will just reproduce a part of it here:
According to Arthur Mizener, Nabokov's colleague at Cornell and Scott
Fitzgerald's biographer, Nabokov considered Tender Is the Night
"magnificent" and The Great Gatsby "terrible." Nabokov apparently did
not elaborate on his evaluations of the two novels any further but his
judgment of The Great Gatsby is quite curious since in this particular novel
Fitzgerald treats the theme that was so prominent in Nabokov's own
writing: the powerof one's longing to return to the past.
Both The Great Gatsby and Mary or Mashen'ka, in which this theme found its
clearest expression in Nabokov, were written in 1925. Both were based on
largely autobiographical experiences.
Given the similarities between the two novels, Nabokov's attitude to The
Great Gatsby may appear somewhat puzzling. After all, The Great Gatsby is
arguably the best novel Fitzgerald ever produced, and even though it had
not been acknowledged as such immediately after its publication, by the early
1950s, when Nabokov and Mizener's conversation took place, the work was
already considered by many as one of the true masterpieces of American
literature. Mizener himself was so stunned by Nabokov's pronouncement that
he wrote it off as yet another example of how his colleague "delighted in
his own... violent opinions of other writers and liked to express them
where they would be most likely to shock."
Nabokov's harsh judgment of The Great Gatsby will appear even more
surprising when we realize that Nabokov generally exhibited an
uncharacteristically benign attitude towards Fitzgerald as a
fellow-writer. In addition to Tender Is the Night, Nabokov also liked The
Crack Up, a volume of Fitzgerald's essays, letters and notebooks, which he
described to Wilson in 1945 as "first rate healthy literature.... Rich
stuff, sane real stuff." Simon Karlinsky suspects that this attitude was
due to Nabokov's "personal fondness for Wilson, whose classmate and close
personal friend" Fitzgerald was.
Yet,there were obviously other writers -- Faulkner, among them -- whom Wilson
championed or was friends with but whom Nabokov absolutely refused to
admire. Furthermore, being swayed in his literary opinions by his personal
feelings for anyone is quite out of character in Nabokov's case. Nabokov's
father, whom Nabokov both adored and respected, had a life-long admiration
for Stendhal, Balzac and Zola, yet the son stayed firm in considering them
"three detestable mediocrities." No, "personal fondness" for Wilson, even
at the peak of their brief honeymoon as friends, had nothing to do with
Nabokov's general respect for Fitzgerald's work.
Why, then, was he so critical of The Great Gatsby?
[I'll cut it here so that everyone can answer this tantalizing question
for him/herself. The rest of my paper dealt with my answer to it.]