----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 5:24 AM
Subject: Re: Ada/or PF
I also wonder what effect those
years of teaching had on VN's work. Did he make his novels into difficult
textbooks,academic exercises to stump readers, to test their knowledge of
literary history? I mean, "Program! Program! Get your Pale Fire Program! You
can't read Pale Fire without a Program!"
Phil I
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EDNOTE. I think there can be no doubt that items VN
gleaned from his class-related reading things that got worked into
his novels. I know that even in my academic writing whatever incidental
reading I'm doing at the time sneaks in. There is now in progress a Nabokov's
Reading List project that wll gradually accumulate a bibliography of books VN is
known to have read and the date of reading. It will be entertaining and
instructive to search out related allusions in VN's writings. It will also help
establish or reject tentative allusions.