Subject
Re: QUERY: John Bailey & VN (or not)
From
Date
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Dear Jansy,
I was thrilled to read of your reference to John Sutherland's review of Field's
VN (a new copy of which I just ordered recently to replace the old lost one).
John Sutherland is one of my favorite literary historians (recently and perhaps
currently teaching at Cal-Tech here in Pasadena my home town), and I'm glad to
hear that he has written about VN.
What continues to perplex me is that my favorite Russian Literature critic John
Bailey* (author famous for the memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch's final illness)
has failed to take VN seriously, if at all. Can anyone shed light on this
oddity?
many thanks from
Carolyn
*His book on A.S. Pushkin is extraordinary - one of the most read and re-read
books in my library.
________________________________
From: Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Fri, April 5, 2013 5:07:37 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: Psycho-plagiarism?
Keith: Does anyone know where Nabokov called biography psycho-plagiarism? It's
referred to constantly, but no text that I've encountered so far cites it.
JM: What a pity that you didn't ennumerate some of the references to
"psycho-plagiarism." Here are a few suggestions, in case nobody comes forward
with the correct indication.
I searched for VN's considerations about biography ("average reality") and
autobiographical fiction ("true reality"), as elaborated upon by G. Green (at
Cycnus), until I found one of those "references" with no bibliographical
markings*, but one that brings a promising lead, at least into
the demonstrations of VN's "jaundiced views" about biography, as may be found
in the exemplary comments written by biographers Goodman (RLSK) and by Kinbote
(PF). These two examples helped me to conjecture that Nabokov's sentence must
have been pronounced or written down at the time he was staying in Paris. Or
in the late fifties in America?.
I also wonder if they were quoted by B. Boyd in one of his biographies (RY and
AY, or published among VN's collected letters to editors. Worth giving it a
try.
...............................................................................................................................
*. "Very Nasty," an old review by John Sutherland of Andrew Field's "VN: The
Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov," published online by the London Review of
Books. He writes that "Field was the first critic conscientiously to excavate
Nabokov’s sizeable corpus of early work in Russian, most of it published
obscurely in pre-war Europe. ...Nabokov’s career up to 1967 was not easily
brought into single focus...Field’s body-and-soul devotion to the Nabokov cause
and his mastery of out-of-the-way works was ingratiating. ...Nabokov acceded to
his young disciple’s offer despite a ferocious distaste for and disbelief in
literary biography (‘psycho-plagiarism’) as a genre – jaundiced views given
full play in the depiction of Sebastian Knight’s Goodman and Pale Fire’s
Kinbote. "
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/
I was thrilled to read of your reference to John Sutherland's review of Field's
VN (a new copy of which I just ordered recently to replace the old lost one).
John Sutherland is one of my favorite literary historians (recently and perhaps
currently teaching at Cal-Tech here in Pasadena my home town), and I'm glad to
hear that he has written about VN.
What continues to perplex me is that my favorite Russian Literature critic John
Bailey* (author famous for the memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch's final illness)
has failed to take VN seriously, if at all. Can anyone shed light on this
oddity?
many thanks from
Carolyn
*His book on A.S. Pushkin is extraordinary - one of the most read and re-read
books in my library.
________________________________
From: Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Fri, April 5, 2013 5:07:37 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: Psycho-plagiarism?
Keith: Does anyone know where Nabokov called biography psycho-plagiarism? It's
referred to constantly, but no text that I've encountered so far cites it.
JM: What a pity that you didn't ennumerate some of the references to
"psycho-plagiarism." Here are a few suggestions, in case nobody comes forward
with the correct indication.
I searched for VN's considerations about biography ("average reality") and
autobiographical fiction ("true reality"), as elaborated upon by G. Green (at
Cycnus), until I found one of those "references" with no bibliographical
markings*, but one that brings a promising lead, at least into
the demonstrations of VN's "jaundiced views" about biography, as may be found
in the exemplary comments written by biographers Goodman (RLSK) and by Kinbote
(PF). These two examples helped me to conjecture that Nabokov's sentence must
have been pronounced or written down at the time he was staying in Paris. Or
in the late fifties in America?.
I also wonder if they were quoted by B. Boyd in one of his biographies (RY and
AY, or published among VN's collected letters to editors. Worth giving it a
try.
...............................................................................................................................
*. "Very Nasty," an old review by John Sutherland of Andrew Field's "VN: The
Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov," published online by the London Review of
Books. He writes that "Field was the first critic conscientiously to excavate
Nabokov’s sizeable corpus of early work in Russian, most of it published
obscurely in pre-war Europe. ...Nabokov’s career up to 1967 was not easily
brought into single focus...Field’s body-and-soul devotion to the Nabokov cause
and his mastery of out-of-the-way works was ingratiating. ...Nabokov acceded to
his young disciple’s offer despite a ferocious distaste for and disbelief in
literary biography (‘psycho-plagiarism’) as a genre – jaundiced views given
full play in the depiction of Sebastian Knight’s Goodman and Pale Fire’s
Kinbote. "
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/