Barrie Karp sent me a selection of stories from The New Yorker's archive. It's about Books & Writers: "Writing gets a bad rap. Ernest Hemingway, sitting at an airport bar with Lillian Ross, en route from Havana, described the “terrible responsibility” of it, the physical toll of finishing a book, the anguish of revision. “Novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him,” he said, before ordering a double bourbon. Every author has a different way of getting the words down, and the work done. Here are some glimpses of the writing life, including that memorable Profile of Hemingway."David Remnick <NewYorker@newsletter.newyorker.com>
One of the profiles describes James Salter, but there was nothing about Nabokov but I recently sent a VN-L posting, connecting both, by following this link: http://www.vogue.com/13275109/james-salter-remembers-vladimir-nabokov/
I wonder if what is mentioned in the Profile indicates stylistic points in common between them:
PROFILESAPRIL 15, 2013 JAMES SALTER BY NICK PAUMGARTEN: “Salter is not famous. Among many writers, and some literary people, he is venerated for his sentence-making, his observational powers, and his depictions of sex and valor. But most people seem not to know about him, and many who do find his work precious, arty, mandarin.”And yet, I recently sent a VN-L posting, connecting both, by following this link: http://www.vogue.com/13275109/james-salter-remembers-vladimir-nabokov/
Just as unfamiliar to me, Stanley Elkin was mentioned in 2008 with a passing reference to Nabokov*. And here is what V.Nabokov wrote about him (it can be found in Strong Opinions and also here: http://www.lib.ru/NABOKOW/Anniversary.txt) “ Several passages in Mr. Elkin's "Three Meetings," a parody of an "I remember . . ." piece, are extremely funny, such as the farcical variety of repetition or the casual reference to
the "lovely eggal forms" he and I encountered on "an expedition up the Orinoco." And our third meeting is a scream .”
I’d like to learn more about those two old writers, Salter and Elkin: are there any articles by Nabokov scholars, as there are for Thomas Pinchon, about them?
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* - The Future Is Behind Us Now: Two bookstores are opening in Seattle this month. One of them is good by Paul Constant, August 14, 2008: “Here's the supersecret method I use to determine if a bookstore is any good: Find the fiction section, locate the Es, and look for Stanley Elkin. If a bookstore carries Elkin's novels, it's a sign of all-around quality. Elkin, who died in 1995, was a masterful writer with a playful love of language that few authors this side of Nabokov could match—it's a good bet that almost every literary author you admire has read and loved Stanley Elkin's fiction. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-future-is-behind-us-now/Content?oid=643644