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Re: SKB on Stein-Stone
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Vladimir Nabokov on Georg Steiner in "Anniversary Notes" (Strong Opinions, 1970, p.288)*
"Mr. Steiner's article ("Extraterritorial") is built on solid abstractions and opaque generalizations. A few specific items can be made out and should be corrected. He absurdly overestimates Oscar Wilde's mastery of French. It is human but a little cheap on his part to chide my Van Veen for sneering at my Lolita (which, in a transfigured form, I magnanimously turned over to a transposed fellow author); it might be wiser for him to read Ada more carefully than did the morons whom he rightly condemns for having dismissed as hermetic a writer's limpid and precise prose. To one piece of misinformation I must strongly object: I never belonged to the "haute bourgeoisie" to which he grimly assigns me (rather like that Marxist reviewer of my Speak, Memory who classified my father as a "plutocrat" and a "man of affairs"!). The Nabokovs have been soldiers and squires since (at least) the fifteenth century."
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* - Vladimir Nabokov. Anniversary notes lib.ru/NABOKOW/Anniversary.txt
btw: Like the R.G. Stonelower, there's Nabokov's variation Lowell/Lowden which seems to indicate the poet W.H. Auden.
While trying to retrieve Nabokov's comments on the latter, I came to an interesting information:
Love's labours lost : comedy set to music / by Nicolas Nabokov .
catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2940173 - Em cache
Nabokov, Nicolas, & Auden, W. H. & Kallman, Chester, 1972 Love's labours lost : comedy set to music / by Nicolas Nabokov ; libretto by W. H. Auden and ...
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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
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"Mr. Steiner's article ("Extraterritorial") is built on solid abstractions and opaque generalizations. A few specific items can be made out and should be corrected. He absurdly overestimates Oscar Wilde's mastery of French. It is human but a little cheap on his part to chide my Van Veen for sneering at my Lolita (which, in a transfigured form, I magnanimously turned over to a transposed fellow author); it might be wiser for him to read Ada more carefully than did the morons whom he rightly condemns for having dismissed as hermetic a writer's limpid and precise prose. To one piece of misinformation I must strongly object: I never belonged to the "haute bourgeoisie" to which he grimly assigns me (rather like that Marxist reviewer of my Speak, Memory who classified my father as a "plutocrat" and a "man of affairs"!). The Nabokovs have been soldiers and squires since (at least) the fifteenth century."
............................................................................................
* - Vladimir Nabokov. Anniversary notes lib.ru/NABOKOW/Anniversary.txt
btw: Like the R.G. Stonelower, there's Nabokov's variation Lowell/Lowden which seems to indicate the poet W.H. Auden.
While trying to retrieve Nabokov's comments on the latter, I came to an interesting information:
Love's labours lost : comedy set to music / by Nicolas Nabokov .
catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2940173 - Em cache
Nabokov, Nicolas, & Auden, W. H. & Kallman, Chester, 1972 Love's labours lost : comedy set to music / by Nicolas Nabokov ; libretto by W. H. Auden and ...
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/