1)
A responsible discussion of the relationship between any artist and her or his works would have to begin with a deep and nuanced understanding of how the creative process actually operates. That's the price of admission. Assumptions about one-to-one relationships between author and material are often crude, cheap, and irrational--at times to such an extent that a living author might sue for libel. More often they are simply silly. You do not find such relationships even in  the works of authors who seem to want them (Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac).

A scholar aware of the limitations of her or his knowledge and methods might say we owe the existence of Othello, in part, to source material, including John Pory's translation of Leo Africanus' A Geographical History of Africa (1600) and Cinthio's Italian novella The Hecatommithi (1565). And yet for all we know, and can know, Othello  the *character* may have sprung from the comjunction of a writing deadline, a memory of an old Stratford playmate, an intimate knowledge of Burbage's voice, a case of indigestion from a meal at the Swan with Two Necks, a glimpse of Abdul Guahid the Barbary ambassador, a game of skittles with the Dark Lady's cousin, a bit of court gossip old enough to be put to use, the chance combination of two or three words that reacted on the Shakespearean apparatus in order to precipitate Othello.

Was Shakespeare crypto-Moorish? Did he strangle women in his spare time (why then, all that childhood business about the gloves)? Just how negative WAS his capability?

I think Louise said it best:

To An Artist, To Take Heart

Slipping in blood, by his own hand, through pride
Hamlet, Othello, Coriolanus fall.
Upon his bed, however, Shakespeare died,
Having endured them all.

--Louise Bogan (1897-1970)
 

2)
The reader of an imaginative work participates thoroughly in imagining the work's characters. To whom, then, is the reader who then cries "Pervert!" really speaking? I think Stephen said it best:

The sage lectured brilliantly.
Before him, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.

Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
The pupils sat, all grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage.

--Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900)
 

How very like the experience of reading LOLITA.
 

~ Tom

"D. Barton Johnson" wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: D. Barton JohnsonSent: Monday, September 19, 2005 5:31 PMSubject: Re: what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man he was
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin <mailto:chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
To: D. Barton Johnson <mailto:chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 10:44 AM
Subject: FW: what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man he was
 
 

Dear Dmitri,

I was very glad to read both your letter to Don and his reply. And if any of my comments recently have added in any way to your distress I beg your forgiveness. Your description of your father was a tonic: what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man he was.

I have no doubt that if I had met him, this is the person I should have met. He was after all the creator of Pnin, and for that alone should be remembered with gratitude forever.

But he also created Pnin's destroyer. He created Lolita, but he also created Humbert & Quilty. He created Aqua, but he also created Marina who probably murdered her, not to mention Vaniada. His ability to imagine evil, especially sexual evil, is so fiendishly good, is it any wonder it gives some of us pause?

The "porno-graph record" as you so wittily call it, was an aspect of your father's work too. It just strikes me as odd (at least it strikes me now, since the subject was recently thrust unwanted upon us) that this aspect of your father's work has not - - so far as I can recall - - been addressed by any of his serious critics. Or am I mistaken?

It does seem that, perhaps just for the reason  that his serious critics have chosen to ignore this aspect of his work, that it has taken on the quality of an elephant in the room. Someone points to it, and we are all surprise and shock. Elephant? what elephant?

But the pornographic aspect is there still and all. Maybe you are correct, and it is the virtuosity of your father's imagination that explains its force. His brilliant portrayal of the insane homosexual Kinbote never for a moment caused me to think he might himself be either homosexual or insane.  No one who takes him seriously can possibly confuse him with pervert Humbert.

But there do seem to be some things about Nabokov we still don't know.

freundliche Grüsse von Deine
Carolyn