Subject
Re: Did VN know German? and a library is announced
From
Date
Body
How wonderful, Herr Zimmer, to think that you heard Nabokov auf Deutsch
sprechend. Reading German can be more than even a native speaker can bear,
though. My Viennese mother once sent me to the UCLA library to get her a copy of
one of Thomas Mann's novels, when I returned with the original German, she was
terribly upset. I had to go back for an English translation.
As for Nabokov, what you write though to me, at least, means that his knowledge
of German was more than I thought he admitted to. My ignorance clearly, of what
he had to say on the subject.
Carolyn
________________________________
From: Dieter E. Zimmer <mail@D-E-ZIMMER.DE>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Mon, May 6, 2013 11:34:23 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Dear Carolyn and listeners,
I have written about Nabokov’s knowledge of German quite a few times,
especially since Field had accused him of copying a passage in ‘Luzhin’ verbatim
straight out of Leonhard Frank’s ‘Bruder und Schwester’, a novel he probably
would not have touched even in a Russian translation. There is a summary
statement on the question in my book ‘Nabokov’s Berlin’ (2001), p.140-141.
I believe I can speak about this issue with some authority as in all likelihood
I am one of the very last people alive who have actually heard Nabokov speak
German. That was in 1966, when in an interview (not published in English so far
but published in volume 21 of his Collected Works in German, pp.62-75) he said
a few sentences about his alleged knowledge of German and his former disdain
for German literature in general (which he said he regretted). His German, as I
heard it spoken, was all right as long as he could stick to the standard
phrases of daily life he remembered, with a very charming Russian accent, but
he was unable to sustain a spontaneous conversation in German. (He told me
off-hand his knowledge of the language was just good enough to order ham and
eggs.)
He left the checking of the German translations of his books entirely to Véra
whose German was much better than his (she had worked for years in a German law
firm known to readers of ‘Dar’) and became ever better though far from fluid
during the thirty years we had to do with each other, when both of them had
gotten over their initial aversion against Germanizing his works at all. He was
especially suspicious in the case of ‘Bend Sinister’ the anonymous first English
translation of which, commissioned by the Pentagon in 1948 to further German
reeducation, after a short check “appalled” him utterly. He rejected its
publication downright in a letter written on August 24, 1948, to Col. Joseph I.
Greene (‘Selected Letters 1940-1977’, p.85-86). I still believe it most unlikely
that he ever read or even noticed Lichberg. The bits of German literature he
quoted in various works are always the same: Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, Bürger’s
dubious ballad ‘Lenore’ und certainly some of the Schiller ballads which all
kids going to schools modeled after the German Gymnasium had to learn. He had
learned ‘Erlkönig’ etc. by heart in the German lessons he had to take in high
school. Even then or later he must have tried to read parts of Goethe’s ‘Faust’,
and he probably tried Hoffmann and a few other classics. During his time in
Crimea, he translated a few Heine songs for a lady who wanted to sing them in
Russian. Also and independently he had great practice in extracting the meaning
from German butterfly atlases and entomological articles. Much later in class,
he taught two German texts: Thomas Mann’s story ‘Das Eisenbahnunglück’ (one of
the shortest short stories Mann ever wrote) which is so easy that with a
dictionary at hand he may very well have read it in German though he quoted from
an American edition. As for Kafka’s ‘Verwandlung,’ Brian Boyd writes: “Once
again he had to correct the set [English] text in class, and he knew just enough
German to ascertain, with Véra’s help, where the English diverged from Kafka”
(‘VNAY’ p.196).
Frankly, to me all theories that Nabokov’s knowledge of German was much better
than he ever admitted in the end serve to disparage his work, to lessen its
originality. I think them unwarranted.
Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
May 6, 2013 - 10am
From: Carolyn Kunin
Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2013 2:24 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
written by ???
Dear Jansy,
Beside's Johnson's real cat Hodge (no s), there is that very odd cat that is
left for Kinbote to look after, so odd that I doubt he even exists in the
'real' world of New Wye. He is to be fed so many sardines every other day and
to drink nothing but looking glass milk, which Martin Gardner has interesting
things to say about - it would seem that Lewis Carroll foresaw modern, nay even
post-modern physics. Why not? (Wye knot, indeed).
The way he, Kinbote, strokes the pussy cat makes me think he is 'actually' in
Kinbote World caressing Fleur de Fyler, who in 'real' New Wye is a pseudonym
for the young girl who is planted on poor innocent young John Shade on his
birthday - so frustrating that I can't recall and no one will help in finding
which birthday it was. The birthday that gave birth to Charles Kinbote, Shade's
younger brother.
In my reading Aunt Maud and the Countess de Fyler are one and the same. The one
lives in New Wye and drives a sporty car and has young girlfriends, the other
lives rawther stodgily in Zembla. There may be proof that they are the same
basic person, in that they die on the same day, that's what I wrote to the List
once at any rate. Sylvia and Sybil (note similarity of the names) are of course
both married to John Shade.
________________________________
From: Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 9:20:11 AM
Subject: Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Haphazard trouvailles seem to be piling up to validate my suspicion that Nabokov
was a Hoffman reader at some time.
>
>
>
>
Dear Jansy,
I too have been a cat person in the past - but these days it's all dogs and
horses. You suspect N of being a secret admirer of Hoffmann, and I suspect his
German was much better than he let on. Why? Keine Ahnung. No, actually I am
sure that he read Goethe in the original and Hoffmann, too,. I do believe that
the "von Lichberg" Lolita was probably read by VN in Berlin in '23 when it came
out. The German is very simple. I only have high school German and I could read
it easily.
I love the "burst appendix" in your attic. I too have books coming out of the
seams - but, I am proud to announce that Westminster Cottage (where I live now)
is being transformed into a Library which will become part of the UC library
system after my passing on. After I die - why not say it. By the end of the
summer, the transformation will be complete and WC (oh dear) will be ready to
admit readers. Some of you may be aware that my alma mater, UCLA, owns a very
beautiful and important library in the West Adams district (close to USC, as it
happens), a sort of mimiatura version of the Huntington Library, the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library, which is the repository of the largest and most
important collection of Oscar Wildeana in the world. "Westminster Cottage" will
be a branch library, so to speak, of the Clark.
The first tenant of my house (he rented) was Ralph Freud - no relation to
Jansy's Freud, so far as I know (and it's pronouncedfrood), one of the founders
of the Pasadena Play House and the founder of the theater arts department at
UCLA. Most of my book collecting was in the area of modern illustrated books
and fine bindings, music, dance and Russian literature of course. But I am now
collecting in the area of theater as well. My most prized acquisition is a 1705
printing of Shakespeare plays - the first illustrated Shakespear (that's how
it's spelled) ever published. The texts of the plays are considerably shorter
than in the more famous First Folios, and I suspect that they are closer to the
actual text of the plays as they were performed at that time, and Shakespear's
of course.
Forgive my rambling on - but I am really proud of myself in this regard. When
the library is ready, I will invite the List members to visit, so I hope you
all will forgive my prolixity this morning. And now it's back to KP!
________________________________
From: Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 8:56:59 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Kater Murr
C. Kunin: Murli-kat'! (to purr in Russian, n'est-ce-pas?). Well, I don't know
if E T A Hoffmann (one n or two?) knew Russian or not, but his pussy is indeed
a learned Tom -- and not unNabokovian, you may agree - perhaps even a bit Pale
Fireish: The Life And Opinions Of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary
Biography of Kappelmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper is
a complex satirical novel by Prussian Romantic-era author E.T.A. Hoffmann. It
was first published in 1819-1821 as Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst
fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen
Makulaturblättern, in two volumes. A planned third volume was never completed.
It was Hoffmann's final novel and is considered his masterpiece. It reflected
his concepts of aesthetics, and predated post-modern literary techniques in its
unusual structure. Critic Alex Ross writes of the novel, "If the phantasmagoric
'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young Brooklyn hipster, it
might be hailed as a tour de force of postmodern fiction."
Jansy Mello: What a find, Carolyn. It seems to anticipate Kinbote's muddling of
Zembla and Shade's life in New Wye. I had already posted something about
certain similarities and references in the VN-L concerning "Hoffmann's short
story 'My Cousin's Corner Window' [ in Berlin, that] is the dominant feature
of a "small room with a low ceiling, high above the street" "That is the usual
custom of writers and poets," writes Hoffmann. "What does the low ceiling
matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a high and cheerful dome that rises
to the radiant blue sky.".and, recently, about the doll Olympia and the Sandman
(from Freud's article on the "Uncanny"). Haphazard trouvailles seem to be
piling up to validate my suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some
time.
Since I used to be a cat-person (now there's Stark in my life, a devilish black
shipperke dog) and collected many stories about them, I'll start to read a
forgotten collection of ."Feline Fairy Tales" [ The King of the Cats and
other... edited by John Richard Stephens, Faber and Faber] following your
original push.I wish I could remember the plot of a cat one in Karel Kapek's
(or find his book "Nine Fairy Tales and one thrown in for good measure" that's
lost in "the burst appendix" of my attic).
Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing cat
with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human language
and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example, written by
???
It's difficult to forget that Nabokov even read with delight his uncle's
collection from La Semaine
de Suzette and Bibliothèque dewww.bibliothequedesuzette.com/
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online
Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options
Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online
Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription
options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the
archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline
View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
sprechend. Reading German can be more than even a native speaker can bear,
though. My Viennese mother once sent me to the UCLA library to get her a copy of
one of Thomas Mann's novels, when I returned with the original German, she was
terribly upset. I had to go back for an English translation.
As for Nabokov, what you write though to me, at least, means that his knowledge
of German was more than I thought he admitted to. My ignorance clearly, of what
he had to say on the subject.
Carolyn
________________________________
From: Dieter E. Zimmer <mail@D-E-ZIMMER.DE>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Mon, May 6, 2013 11:34:23 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Dear Carolyn and listeners,
I have written about Nabokov’s knowledge of German quite a few times,
especially since Field had accused him of copying a passage in ‘Luzhin’ verbatim
straight out of Leonhard Frank’s ‘Bruder und Schwester’, a novel he probably
would not have touched even in a Russian translation. There is a summary
statement on the question in my book ‘Nabokov’s Berlin’ (2001), p.140-141.
I believe I can speak about this issue with some authority as in all likelihood
I am one of the very last people alive who have actually heard Nabokov speak
German. That was in 1966, when in an interview (not published in English so far
but published in volume 21 of his Collected Works in German, pp.62-75) he said
a few sentences about his alleged knowledge of German and his former disdain
for German literature in general (which he said he regretted). His German, as I
heard it spoken, was all right as long as he could stick to the standard
phrases of daily life he remembered, with a very charming Russian accent, but
he was unable to sustain a spontaneous conversation in German. (He told me
off-hand his knowledge of the language was just good enough to order ham and
eggs.)
He left the checking of the German translations of his books entirely to Véra
whose German was much better than his (she had worked for years in a German law
firm known to readers of ‘Dar’) and became ever better though far from fluid
during the thirty years we had to do with each other, when both of them had
gotten over their initial aversion against Germanizing his works at all. He was
especially suspicious in the case of ‘Bend Sinister’ the anonymous first English
translation of which, commissioned by the Pentagon in 1948 to further German
reeducation, after a short check “appalled” him utterly. He rejected its
publication downright in a letter written on August 24, 1948, to Col. Joseph I.
Greene (‘Selected Letters 1940-1977’, p.85-86). I still believe it most unlikely
that he ever read or even noticed Lichberg. The bits of German literature he
quoted in various works are always the same: Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, Bürger’s
dubious ballad ‘Lenore’ und certainly some of the Schiller ballads which all
kids going to schools modeled after the German Gymnasium had to learn. He had
learned ‘Erlkönig’ etc. by heart in the German lessons he had to take in high
school. Even then or later he must have tried to read parts of Goethe’s ‘Faust’,
and he probably tried Hoffmann and a few other classics. During his time in
Crimea, he translated a few Heine songs for a lady who wanted to sing them in
Russian. Also and independently he had great practice in extracting the meaning
from German butterfly atlases and entomological articles. Much later in class,
he taught two German texts: Thomas Mann’s story ‘Das Eisenbahnunglück’ (one of
the shortest short stories Mann ever wrote) which is so easy that with a
dictionary at hand he may very well have read it in German though he quoted from
an American edition. As for Kafka’s ‘Verwandlung,’ Brian Boyd writes: “Once
again he had to correct the set [English] text in class, and he knew just enough
German to ascertain, with Véra’s help, where the English diverged from Kafka”
(‘VNAY’ p.196).
Frankly, to me all theories that Nabokov’s knowledge of German was much better
than he ever admitted in the end serve to disparage his work, to lessen its
originality. I think them unwarranted.
Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
May 6, 2013 - 10am
From: Carolyn Kunin
Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2013 2:24 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing
cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human
language and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example,
written by ???
Dear Jansy,
Beside's Johnson's real cat Hodge (no s), there is that very odd cat that is
left for Kinbote to look after, so odd that I doubt he even exists in the
'real' world of New Wye. He is to be fed so many sardines every other day and
to drink nothing but looking glass milk, which Martin Gardner has interesting
things to say about - it would seem that Lewis Carroll foresaw modern, nay even
post-modern physics. Why not? (Wye knot, indeed).
The way he, Kinbote, strokes the pussy cat makes me think he is 'actually' in
Kinbote World caressing Fleur de Fyler, who in 'real' New Wye is a pseudonym
for the young girl who is planted on poor innocent young John Shade on his
birthday - so frustrating that I can't recall and no one will help in finding
which birthday it was. The birthday that gave birth to Charles Kinbote, Shade's
younger brother.
In my reading Aunt Maud and the Countess de Fyler are one and the same. The one
lives in New Wye and drives a sporty car and has young girlfriends, the other
lives rawther stodgily in Zembla. There may be proof that they are the same
basic person, in that they die on the same day, that's what I wrote to the List
once at any rate. Sylvia and Sybil (note similarity of the names) are of course
both married to John Shade.
________________________________
From: Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 9:20:11 AM
Subject: Did VN know German? and a library is announced
Haphazard trouvailles seem to be piling up to validate my suspicion that Nabokov
was a Hoffman reader at some time.
>
>
>
>
Dear Jansy,
I too have been a cat person in the past - but these days it's all dogs and
horses. You suspect N of being a secret admirer of Hoffmann, and I suspect his
German was much better than he let on. Why? Keine Ahnung. No, actually I am
sure that he read Goethe in the original and Hoffmann, too,. I do believe that
the "von Lichberg" Lolita was probably read by VN in Berlin in '23 when it came
out. The German is very simple. I only have high school German and I could read
it easily.
I love the "burst appendix" in your attic. I too have books coming out of the
seams - but, I am proud to announce that Westminster Cottage (where I live now)
is being transformed into a Library which will become part of the UC library
system after my passing on. After I die - why not say it. By the end of the
summer, the transformation will be complete and WC (oh dear) will be ready to
admit readers. Some of you may be aware that my alma mater, UCLA, owns a very
beautiful and important library in the West Adams district (close to USC, as it
happens), a sort of mimiatura version of the Huntington Library, the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library, which is the repository of the largest and most
important collection of Oscar Wildeana in the world. "Westminster Cottage" will
be a branch library, so to speak, of the Clark.
The first tenant of my house (he rented) was Ralph Freud - no relation to
Jansy's Freud, so far as I know (and it's pronouncedfrood), one of the founders
of the Pasadena Play House and the founder of the theater arts department at
UCLA. Most of my book collecting was in the area of modern illustrated books
and fine bindings, music, dance and Russian literature of course. But I am now
collecting in the area of theater as well. My most prized acquisition is a 1705
printing of Shakespeare plays - the first illustrated Shakespear (that's how
it's spelled) ever published. The texts of the plays are considerably shorter
than in the more famous First Folios, and I suspect that they are closer to the
actual text of the plays as they were performed at that time, and Shakespear's
of course.
Forgive my rambling on - but I am really proud of myself in this regard. When
the library is ready, I will invite the List members to visit, so I hope you
all will forgive my prolixity this morning. And now it's back to KP!
________________________________
From: Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 8:56:59 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Kater Murr
C. Kunin: Murli-kat'! (to purr in Russian, n'est-ce-pas?). Well, I don't know
if E T A Hoffmann (one n or two?) knew Russian or not, but his pussy is indeed
a learned Tom -- and not unNabokovian, you may agree - perhaps even a bit Pale
Fireish: The Life And Opinions Of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary
Biography of Kappelmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper is
a complex satirical novel by Prussian Romantic-era author E.T.A. Hoffmann. It
was first published in 1819-1821 as Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst
fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen
Makulaturblättern, in two volumes. A planned third volume was never completed.
It was Hoffmann's final novel and is considered his masterpiece. It reflected
his concepts of aesthetics, and predated post-modern literary techniques in its
unusual structure. Critic Alex Ross writes of the novel, "If the phantasmagoric
'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young Brooklyn hipster, it
might be hailed as a tour de force of postmodern fiction."
Jansy Mello: What a find, Carolyn. It seems to anticipate Kinbote's muddling of
Zembla and Shade's life in New Wye. I had already posted something about
certain similarities and references in the VN-L concerning "Hoffmann's short
story 'My Cousin's Corner Window' [ in Berlin, that] is the dominant feature
of a "small room with a low ceiling, high above the street" "That is the usual
custom of writers and poets," writes Hoffmann. "What does the low ceiling
matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a high and cheerful dome that rises
to the radiant blue sky.".and, recently, about the doll Olympia and the Sandman
(from Freud's article on the "Uncanny"). Haphazard trouvailles seem to be
piling up to validate my suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some
time.
Since I used to be a cat-person (now there's Stark in my life, a devilish black
shipperke dog) and collected many stories about them, I'll start to read a
forgotten collection of ."Feline Fairy Tales" [ The King of the Cats and
other... edited by John Richard Stephens, Faber and Faber] following your
original push.I wish I could remember the plot of a cat one in Karel Kapek's
(or find his book "Nine Fairy Tales and one thrown in for good measure" that's
lost in "the burst appendix" of my attic).
Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing cat
with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK) Some who understand human language
and act as spies all over the house retelling gossip for example, written by
???
It's difficult to forget that Nabokov even read with delight his uncle's
collection from La Semaine
de Suzette and Bibliothèque dewww.bibliothequedesuzette.com/
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online
Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options
Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online
Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription
options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the
archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline
View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/