Dave Haan:.James Wood
considers a new translation of Lermontov's _A Hero of Our Time_...mentioning
Nabokov only en parenthessant: "Natasha Randall’s English...has exactly the
right degree of loose velocity...(Nabokov’s version, the best-known older
translation, is a bit more demure than Randall’s, less savage.)."However, there
is much more of interest in the essay...in issues that are suggestive of grounds
for Nabokov's appreciation[...] "Parody, as Dostoevsky acutely understood,
is an act of admiration as much as of disdain, and perhaps the best way of
understanding Pechorin’s distorted histrionics is by way of Dostoevsky’s
dialectic of assertion and abasement."[ ] perhaps Nabokov's way of
understanding parody is to be preferred, and may also illuminate his disdain for
Dusty ...
JM: Very interesting screening
of James Wood's essay on Natasha Randall's new translation of "A Hero of
Our Time," and your "en parenthessant" readings about Nabokov, as
a translator and an author. As I
understand from your observation, for you Nabokov is exempt
of having applied both "admiration and disdain"in his parodies
(quoting VN: "Satire is a lesson, parody is a
game"and "parody...its familiar sense of "grotesque
imitation." - "parody in the sense of an essentially lighthearted,
delicate, mockingbird game" Cf. www.kulichki.com/moshkow//NABOKOW/Inter06.txt)
Do you consider that VN opposed Dusty
because the latter's "dialectic of assertion and abasement" was in
direct contrast to Nabokov's explicitation that art rests on a state in
which "curiosity, tenderness, kindness" are the norm? In his interviews and strong opinions Nabokov allowed us a glimpse
into less elaborate feelings towards many other authors and people. Do
you agree, then, such contrasting motivations make Nabokov's artistic
achievements even
more admirable?*
.......................................................................................................................................
*Recent postings seem to suggest that
Nabokov's full "compassion and tenderness," (as expressed by John
Shade), his sense of humor and parody, is
sometimes misunderstood, or applied only in part:
Sandy Klein:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7157019/Lemony-Snicket-Interview.html
Lemony Snicket is known to millions of children worldwide as the author of
the Series of Unfortunate Events books...the narrator presents himself as a
lonely journalist who has had more than his fair share of tragedy... The
self-referentiality of the books can be traced back to his [Daniel Hanlder] love
of Vladimir Nabokov. “I was a Nabokov freak,” Handler says wistfully. “There’s
something about the way he writes that drags my brain right in.” He says there
is something Nabokovian about Lemony Snicket. “He’s an unreliable narrator, he’s
distracted by detail and digression until detail and digression become the point
of the thing.” Handler has written adult (“that sounds kind of dirty”) novels
under his own name, which exhibit a similar playfulness.
Sandy Klein:
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=5382&cn=139
Review - The Lolita Effect /The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We
Can Do About It by M. G. Durham/ by Michael Pereira, M.A.: M. G.
Durham's The Lolita Effect is an investigation into the present condition of the
media's portrayal of young girls...The title of this book comes from the Lolita
novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Durham addresses how our putative attitude to the
'Lolita' is based on the sexualized fantasy of a young girl (Dolores Haze)
imposed by the adult character Humbert Humbert. For Durham, a conscientious
reading of Nabokov's Lolita should consider...Haze is ultimately the victim of
an adult's fantasy. This metaphor works very well to characterize the social
condition of how the media impacts on our attitudes about female sexuality and
how the warped sexualized reading of young Haze overshadows her
plight.