J.Aisenberg ( not ice ...a vulcano?):To Assa I
say, I also thought of Greene's The Third Man, which would make sense since
it was partly due to Greene that Lolita became such a scandalous hit. To Jansy,
while I think you're right that Eliot is unquestionably all over Pale Fire, as
well as at the end of Lolita, it seems hard to deny from letters and
interviews that N. had anything but contempt for the man and his
work (possibly due the charges that Eliot was an anti-semite).
Nabokov, I recall, mentioned Spanish in interviews; in the quote
below he says "Iberized"--so is N.'s way of pronouncing it
really Portuguese?
JM: Greene's desserts may not
have been acknowledged in Pale Fire by a reference to his
novel "Third Man", but it's good to remember his role in divulging
Lolita. Without going back to the L-Archives, I won't be able
to remember why or how the "brocken specter" entered the picture.
VN also disliked Ezra Pound ("definitely second-rate",
together with Eliot, if I recall his words correctly).
I wonder if rancour towards a poet's political
stand would be as strong an influence to intervene in VN's opinions
about the intrinsic quality of his work.
There's so much we ignore about most writers'
characters, cowardice, ethical standarts, as we are also not
well informed about the lives of important scientists ( take
Edison, Marconi...), whose discoveries have become indispensable for the
maintenance of our civilization ( just imagine a present-day
Lettrocalamity!)
Btw: Today I was enchanted by an explanation
concerning the word "Posh", ie, that it derived from
"Port Out, Starboard Home" ( used to indicate the
shaded sides of the ship during their route back and forth from
England to India). Julian Barnes, who mentions it, warns us that "false
etimologies may be more informative than the true ones" when he adds that
this interpretation of "posh" is incorrect ( he quotes The Oxford English
Dictionay reference to George Chowdharay-Best in the Mariner's
Mirror). Posh...
[ JA, the "iberized" applies to the entire
Iberian peninsula so it necessarily includes Spain ( I cannot imagine VN had Portugal in mind)
]