Subject
[NABOKOV-L] [Sighting] Genius or narcissist,
by The Independent Viv Groskop.
by The Independent Viv Groskop.
From
Date
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Vladimir Nabokov: Genius or narcissist? With publication of yet another florid paean to Lolita's creator, Viv Groskop asks what it means to be the ultimate 'writer's writer' (Sunday, 29 May 2011) Vladimir Nabokov: Genius or narcissist?
The Independent
"No one inspires the devotion of writers quite like Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. Here's Jake Arnott, the author of The Long Firm (Favourite Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight): "He has this uncanny ability to be simultaneously precise and obscure with language; a conjuror diverting our attention with each trick."/ Mark Crick, the author of Kafka's Soup (his favourite? Pale Fire), says: "Almost everything about Nabokov entertains and amuses me: his habit of writing in pencil on index cards; his eccentricities as a teacher; his butterfly collecting; his decision to live in the [Montreux Palace] hotel in Switzerland; his intense dislike of Dostoevsky." A new book by the French-born, New York-based writer Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter (Allen Lane, £20), proclaims Nabokov as the ultimate writer's writer [...] Perhaps he's only a writer's writer. And a certain kind of (self-regarding?) writer at that. Martin Amis: "I bow to no one in my love for this great and greatly inspiring genius." Rushdie again: "The most important writer ever to cross the boundary between one language and another." Others bowing in worship include John Updike, Don DeLillo, Jeffrey Eugenides and Zadie Smith. But these maybe aren't people you look to for book recommendations. In The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby's brilliant reading diary of accessible must-reads, Nabokov features not at all./Are we wrong to be put off? Rupert Thomson, the author of This Party's Got to Stop (Granta, £8.99), says: "I find the phrase 'writer's writer' something of a back-handed compliment as it suggests a certain obscurity. It might even be a euphemism for 'not widely read'. Given that Nabokov wrote Lolita, an international bestseller, he hardly qualifies. To my mind, 'writer's writer' ought to be the highest of compliments. What is a writer, after all, but the most acute and passionate of readers? Look at it that way and a writer's writer is actually a reader's writer."
JM: "A writer's writer is actually a reader's writer"? I'd have added a specification, the word "good," as employed by VN, to qualify readers, to Groskop's conclusion, to focus on Nabokov as a "good reader's writer.". However, the end-result came out as somehow pat or insignificant.
To give back its original headliney glitter I extended the sentence to make it into "Nabokov is the ultimate good reader's writer" (but only when we consider who is Nabokov's ideal reader, i.e, himself...) but got caught in a loop.
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The Independent
"No one inspires the devotion of writers quite like Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. Here's Jake Arnott, the author of The Long Firm (Favourite Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight): "He has this uncanny ability to be simultaneously precise and obscure with language; a conjuror diverting our attention with each trick."/ Mark Crick, the author of Kafka's Soup (his favourite? Pale Fire), says: "Almost everything about Nabokov entertains and amuses me: his habit of writing in pencil on index cards; his eccentricities as a teacher; his butterfly collecting; his decision to live in the [Montreux Palace] hotel in Switzerland; his intense dislike of Dostoevsky." A new book by the French-born, New York-based writer Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter (Allen Lane, £20), proclaims Nabokov as the ultimate writer's writer [...] Perhaps he's only a writer's writer. And a certain kind of (self-regarding?) writer at that. Martin Amis: "I bow to no one in my love for this great and greatly inspiring genius." Rushdie again: "The most important writer ever to cross the boundary between one language and another." Others bowing in worship include John Updike, Don DeLillo, Jeffrey Eugenides and Zadie Smith. But these maybe aren't people you look to for book recommendations. In The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby's brilliant reading diary of accessible must-reads, Nabokov features not at all./Are we wrong to be put off? Rupert Thomson, the author of This Party's Got to Stop (Granta, £8.99), says: "I find the phrase 'writer's writer' something of a back-handed compliment as it suggests a certain obscurity. It might even be a euphemism for 'not widely read'. Given that Nabokov wrote Lolita, an international bestseller, he hardly qualifies. To my mind, 'writer's writer' ought to be the highest of compliments. What is a writer, after all, but the most acute and passionate of readers? Look at it that way and a writer's writer is actually a reader's writer."
JM: "A writer's writer is actually a reader's writer"? I'd have added a specification, the word "good," as employed by VN, to qualify readers, to Groskop's conclusion, to focus on Nabokov as a "good reader's writer.". However, the end-result came out as somehow pat or insignificant.
To give back its original headliney glitter I extended the sentence to make it into "Nabokov is the ultimate good reader's writer" (but only when we consider who is Nabokov's ideal reader, i.e, himself...) but got caught in a loop.
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/