Subject
Nabokov Nation (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Seth Roberts <roberts@garnet.berkeley.edu>
The Blue Suit, by Richard Rayner, just published, is "a memoir of crime"
(dust jacket). The author, who was an undergraduate at Cambridge University,
stole a lot of books and broke into a few houses--or so he writes. The book
was triggered by an offhand remark made by his girlfriend. They were
living in Los Angeles. It was 1992, "the second day of the Los Angeles
riots." Rayner and his girlfriend noticed a "white middle-class couple"
looting a 7-Eleven. Rayner is amazed: "They don't need the stuff.
They're not so different from us." Girlfriend: "Yes, Richard. But what
if the store were filled with Nabokov first editions?"
--------------------------------------
From D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Reporter Whit Andrews, staff writer for "The Times" of Munster, Indiana,
(Oct. 8, pp. D 1 &5) has sent me his two feature stories on the Karner
Blue, the butterly named by Nabokov and now nearing extinction. The
stories focus on the Endangered Species Act and how National Steel Midwest
and EPA officials collaborated to preserve one of the few sites where the
butterfly survives. In researching the story Andrews contacted NABOKV-L
for information on VN's lepidopteral work. He writes: "It was famous
novelist Vladimir Nabokov who established the Karner as a subspecies of
the melissa blue. Nabokov proved through meticuluous study that Karners
were not varieties of the Scudder's blue."
Nabokov would have been pleased.
The Blue Suit, by Richard Rayner, just published, is "a memoir of crime"
(dust jacket). The author, who was an undergraduate at Cambridge University,
stole a lot of books and broke into a few houses--or so he writes. The book
was triggered by an offhand remark made by his girlfriend. They were
living in Los Angeles. It was 1992, "the second day of the Los Angeles
riots." Rayner and his girlfriend noticed a "white middle-class couple"
looting a 7-Eleven. Rayner is amazed: "They don't need the stuff.
They're not so different from us." Girlfriend: "Yes, Richard. But what
if the store were filled with Nabokov first editions?"
--------------------------------------
From D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Reporter Whit Andrews, staff writer for "The Times" of Munster, Indiana,
(Oct. 8, pp. D 1 &5) has sent me his two feature stories on the Karner
Blue, the butterly named by Nabokov and now nearing extinction. The
stories focus on the Endangered Species Act and how National Steel Midwest
and EPA officials collaborated to preserve one of the few sites where the
butterfly survives. In researching the story Andrews contacted NABOKV-L
for information on VN's lepidopteral work. He writes: "It was famous
novelist Vladimir Nabokov who established the Karner as a subspecies of
the melissa blue. Nabokov proved through meticuluous study that Karners
were not varieties of the Scudder's blue."
Nabokov would have been pleased.