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[NABOKOV-L] Time Travels, Nupton and Fulmerford...
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A discussion about the movie, "Unknown" (directed by Jaume Collet-Serra with Liam Neeson, Bruno Ganz, Diane Kruger, Quilty and others), brought other films to my mind, such as Frankenheimer's "Second," or Dmytryk's "Mirage," but I couldn't recollect, initially, who was it that wrote a story about a pact with the devil in which there was a guy named Nupton, another called Fulmerford and a writer or a poet - Soames, was he? Searching about, I finally reached Max Beerbohm's 1919 short-story,* here summarized by Alberto Manguel:
"In Beerbohm's story, set in 1897, Soames, who has sold only three copies of his book of poems, ''Fungoids,'' makes a pact with the Devil. In exchange for his ambitious soul, he asks to visit the (British Museum's) Reading Room a hundred years hence, to see how posterity had judged him. Unfortunately for Soames, posterity has not judged him at all; posterity has merely ignored him. In the story, he finds no record of his work in the library's voluminous catalog, and in a literary history the only mention of his name was a note describing him as an imaginary character in a Beerbohm story." ** No Fulmerford, though! And what about Nupton?
According to Beerbohm, T.K Nupton is the scholar who failed to identify Soames, thereby turning him into a "nobody." Carolyn Kunin once wrote to Nab-L about Botkin's name, as a mirror image of "nikto b", which might be translated "he would be nobody". And there's also a remark by Nabokov (SO?) about searching for his own name and stumbling upon "Nobody." However, in SO, there's Nabokov's 1964 Playboy interview in which he was asked about what he wanted to accomplish or leave behind in the future,. Nabokov answered:
"Well, in this matter of accomplishment, of course, I don't have a 35-year plan or program, but I have a fair inkling of my literary afterlife. I have sensed certain hints...With the Devil's connivance, I open a newspaper of 2063 and in some article on the books page I find: "Nobody reads Nabokov or Fulmerford today." Awful question: Who is this unfortunate Fulmerford?"
Beerbohm's report about the "devil's connivance" with a poet (and its mise-en-abime strategy) might have haunted Nabokov's time-travels - and with greater success than poor Enoch Soames's or Fulmerford's.
......................................................................................................................................
wikipedia's plot summary for "Enoch Soames": the story is narrated by Beerbohm himself; he presents himself as a moderately successful young English essayist and writer in London during the 1890s. He purports to relate the fate of a friend of his named Enoch Soames, an utterly obscure, forgettable, miserable and unsuccessful English writer.Obsessed with the idea that he was a great author of literature and poetry and keenly curious about his sure future fame, Soames one day in 1897 makes a contract with the devil to be able to spend one afternoon (from 2:10 to 7 PM) in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum library exactly one hundred years in the future, on the 3rd day of June in the year 1997 CE-just to know what posterity thinks about him and his work. When he returns, he tells Beerbohm that the only mention of himself he could find was a scholarly article which mentions (using a phonetic spelling apparently adopted by the late 20th century) a story by one Max Beerbohm "in wich e pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"-a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im!" ("in which he portrayed an imaginary character called "Enoch Soames"-a third-rate poet who believes himself a great genius and makes a bargain with the Devil in order to know what posterity thinks of him!"). With characteristic delicacy, Beerbohm quotes the author as saying "It is a somewhat labud sattire" and adds "And 'labud'-what on earth was that? (To this day I have never made out that word.)" ...Beerbohm, shocked, denies that he would ever write such a thing. Soames, before being taken to Hell by the Devil, scornfully requests that Beerbohm at least try and make people believe that he, Soames, actually existed. Beerbohm concludes his narrative by calling down the author of the scholarly article in question for shoddy work; he notes that T.K Nupton must not have finished reading Beerbohm's story, otherwise he would have noticed Soames's (through Beerbohm) flawless predictions about the future and realized the story was not fiction. Beerbohm then notes that Soames had mentioned his presence in the reading room causing a great stir, and writes "I assure you that in no period could Soames be anything but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him, and follow him around, and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation. They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really would come. And when he does come the effect will of course be - awful."
** Alberto Manguel ( Sept.1998, NYT) on "The Writers' Wish List" reports that on " June 3, 1997, a group of literary aficionados gathered in the Reading Room of the British Library in London to welcome the arrival of Enoch Soames, a fictional poet in a short story by the English humorist Max Beerbohm. Perhaps not unexpectedly, he didn't appear [...] It can only be assumed that, for those of us who awaited his appearance in the British Library, even his ghost was invisible. So much for the fruits of ambition. " Wikipedia mentions Teller's "A memory of the nineteen-nineties" ("Being a faithful account of the events of the designated day, when the man who had disappeared was expected briefly to return") which was published in the November 1997 in "The Athlantic Monthly" in which he describes what happened to the people who went to the museum to see if Soames showed up. "...at 2:10 PM, a person meeting Soames' description appears, and begins searching through the catalogue and various biographical dictionaries. A few dozen minutes later, he slips out of sight of the watching Teller and audience, and disappears."
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"In Beerbohm's story, set in 1897, Soames, who has sold only three copies of his book of poems, ''Fungoids,'' makes a pact with the Devil. In exchange for his ambitious soul, he asks to visit the (British Museum's) Reading Room a hundred years hence, to see how posterity had judged him. Unfortunately for Soames, posterity has not judged him at all; posterity has merely ignored him. In the story, he finds no record of his work in the library's voluminous catalog, and in a literary history the only mention of his name was a note describing him as an imaginary character in a Beerbohm story." ** No Fulmerford, though! And what about Nupton?
According to Beerbohm, T.K Nupton is the scholar who failed to identify Soames, thereby turning him into a "nobody." Carolyn Kunin once wrote to Nab-L about Botkin's name, as a mirror image of "nikto b", which might be translated "he would be nobody". And there's also a remark by Nabokov (SO?) about searching for his own name and stumbling upon "Nobody." However, in SO, there's Nabokov's 1964 Playboy interview in which he was asked about what he wanted to accomplish or leave behind in the future,. Nabokov answered:
"Well, in this matter of accomplishment, of course, I don't have a 35-year plan or program, but I have a fair inkling of my literary afterlife. I have sensed certain hints...With the Devil's connivance, I open a newspaper of 2063 and in some article on the books page I find: "Nobody reads Nabokov or Fulmerford today." Awful question: Who is this unfortunate Fulmerford?"
Beerbohm's report about the "devil's connivance" with a poet (and its mise-en-abime strategy) might have haunted Nabokov's time-travels - and with greater success than poor Enoch Soames's or Fulmerford's.
......................................................................................................................................
wikipedia's plot summary for "Enoch Soames": the story is narrated by Beerbohm himself; he presents himself as a moderately successful young English essayist and writer in London during the 1890s. He purports to relate the fate of a friend of his named Enoch Soames, an utterly obscure, forgettable, miserable and unsuccessful English writer.Obsessed with the idea that he was a great author of literature and poetry and keenly curious about his sure future fame, Soames one day in 1897 makes a contract with the devil to be able to spend one afternoon (from 2:10 to 7 PM) in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum library exactly one hundred years in the future, on the 3rd day of June in the year 1997 CE-just to know what posterity thinks about him and his work. When he returns, he tells Beerbohm that the only mention of himself he could find was a scholarly article which mentions (using a phonetic spelling apparently adopted by the late 20th century) a story by one Max Beerbohm "in wich e pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"-a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im!" ("in which he portrayed an imaginary character called "Enoch Soames"-a third-rate poet who believes himself a great genius and makes a bargain with the Devil in order to know what posterity thinks of him!"). With characteristic delicacy, Beerbohm quotes the author as saying "It is a somewhat labud sattire" and adds "And 'labud'-what on earth was that? (To this day I have never made out that word.)" ...Beerbohm, shocked, denies that he would ever write such a thing. Soames, before being taken to Hell by the Devil, scornfully requests that Beerbohm at least try and make people believe that he, Soames, actually existed. Beerbohm concludes his narrative by calling down the author of the scholarly article in question for shoddy work; he notes that T.K Nupton must not have finished reading Beerbohm's story, otherwise he would have noticed Soames's (through Beerbohm) flawless predictions about the future and realized the story was not fiction. Beerbohm then notes that Soames had mentioned his presence in the reading room causing a great stir, and writes "I assure you that in no period could Soames be anything but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him, and follow him around, and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation. They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really would come. And when he does come the effect will of course be - awful."
** Alberto Manguel ( Sept.1998, NYT) on "The Writers' Wish List" reports that on " June 3, 1997, a group of literary aficionados gathered in the Reading Room of the British Library in London to welcome the arrival of Enoch Soames, a fictional poet in a short story by the English humorist Max Beerbohm. Perhaps not unexpectedly, he didn't appear [...] It can only be assumed that, for those of us who awaited his appearance in the British Library, even his ghost was invisible. So much for the fruits of ambition. " Wikipedia mentions Teller's "A memory of the nineteen-nineties" ("Being a faithful account of the events of the designated day, when the man who had disappeared was expected briefly to return") which was published in the November 1997 in "The Athlantic Monthly" in which he describes what happened to the people who went to the museum to see if Soames showed up. "...at 2:10 PM, a person meeting Soames' description appears, and begins searching through the catalogue and various biographical dictionaries. A few dozen minutes later, he slips out of sight of the watching Teller and audience, and disappears."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/