----- Original Message -----

From: Iann88@aol.com

To: NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.eduSent: Monday, April 23, 2001 2:06 PMSubject: Kevin Ohi's Article in Nabokov Studies

 I could not get beyond the second page of Kevin Ohi's article in the latest
"Nabokov Studies" because the article is an example of the "new" literary
criticism which I gave up reading years ago. Every third  word  in Ohi's
article is a Huge Concept word, even the verbs, and these words are technical
jargon  terms crudely appropriated  from psychoanalysis, law, business, and
the very unsocial  social sciences. These Huge Concept words pile up,
sentence after sentence, page after page, until the whole thing collapses
into a stupefying mess.  Whatever happened to elegant, readable prose which
Nabokov himself favored? It is a shame that this kind of writing appears in a
publication devoted to Nabokov, who would have laughed this essay out of
existence. I hope in the future the editor will offer us more literate
contributions.
 

Phillip Iannarelli
Cleveland, Ohio