----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 4:31 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
I was thinking particularly of__Snow Country__, which was
originally published, if memory serves, in 1938. The copyright date of
Seidensticker's English translation is 1956, so a direct 'influence'--a word VN
rightly detested--is unlikely. What seems particularly 'Nabokovian' to me is the
scene in Ch. 1 where Shimamura, the aesthete-protagonist, sees the interior of
the train car in which he is riding, and particularly the face of the beautiful
Yoko, reflected onto the landscape. Reminiscent of the opening of the poem in
__Pale Fire__.
I'll settle for a happy coincidence between writers whose
fidelity to the contours of sensory awareness, including the tricks it is
wont to play, is part of their genius.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 12:17
AM
Subject: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
----- Original Message -----
---------------
Dear Arthur Glass,
I also doubt that VN was
interested in Japanese literature. Most of his references
to Japan are negative.
I have no idea whether or not Kawabata
read Nabokov, but I think he possibly did--at least *Lolita*. The
Japanese translation of *Lolita* was published in 1959 creating
a sensation, and the theme of pedophilia must be attractive to
Kawabata. He could read the novel also in English, if he
would. Some of his characters are pedophiliac,
as
Григорий Чхартишвили ( Grigorii
Chkhartishvili) finds a HH-to-be in the nice
young protagonist of "The Dancing Girl of Izu." It might
be interesting to compare *Lolita* and "House of the Sleeping Beauties"
by means of necrophilia. I am sorry, but I cannot be much
help. I think Yuichi Isahaya, who kindly sent me the
short essay by Чхартишвили, probably
knows better.
Best wishes,
Akiko Nakata