On 12/12/06 15:33, "Chaswe@AOL.COM" <Chaswe@AOL.COM> wrote:

He sounds as at his most "foreign" in BS…..

VN’s intro starts: “Bend Sinister was the first novel I wrote in America, and that was half a dozen years after she and I adopted each other.” Since Bend Sinister is set in what seems to be some kind of soviet or fascist police-state, your  ‘foreign’ is remarkably well-chosen.

I didn't actually write that VN 'sounds as at his most "foreign" in BS', so it is not "my" foreign in this context.  I was, at that time, merely echoing what, I think, Jansy had written. In fact, I very soon afterwards realized that I was confusing Bend Sinister with The Real LIfe of Sebastian Knight, which is where I think VN's written English sounds at its most foreign.

 

Which of VN's novels --- apart from Lolita, Pnin and Pale Fire, as I've already listed --- are set in America?  This is a totally different question, of course, from which of them sounds least "English".  It doesn't seem to matter where Conrad's novels are set, they still sound un-English to my inner ear. Not a strong, but a subjective sensation, naturally.

 

Charles