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Re: [NABOKOV-L] [THOUGHTS] Martins Amis, Rushdie, Asimov,
Nabokov: SF and Fairy Tales...
Nabokov: SF and Fairy Tales...
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Martin Amis' "Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and Other Excursions" (1984 to 1993) brings up constant references to VN - which most of you must be familiar with - but they might be worth recovering:
"When Rushdie was close to finish The Satanic Verses, Zafar made his father promise to forget about grown-ups for a while and write a book for children[...] Haroun is a minor classic of passionate invention[...]the reader is already sad, already moved and haunted, by the book's dedication ( an acrostic) wh ich refers to enforced distance, to a sense of thwarted homing, and to a lost ime that no Happy Ending can redress: Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu: All our dream-worlds may come true. Fairly lands are fearsome too. As I wander far from view, Read, and bring me home to you." (Vanity Fair, 1999)
A very apposite start for an exile's dedication, the lines that begin with "Zembla" to build "Zafar", present both in Rushdies' book and at the end of Amis' essay .
A comment continues to baffle me. Writing about Asimov and his two-volume autobiography ( "In Memory Yet Green; In Joy Still Felt"), Amis's set down: "Structurally, the autobiography makes an average collection of showbiz memoirs look like Nabokov's Speak, Memory. Furthermore, and on Asimov's own admission, nothing ever happened to him."
What did Amis mean by his words on autobiographies structurally and furthermore...?
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"When Rushdie was close to finish The Satanic Verses, Zafar made his father promise to forget about grown-ups for a while and write a book for children[...] Haroun is a minor classic of passionate invention[...]the reader is already sad, already moved and haunted, by the book's dedication ( an acrostic) wh ich refers to enforced distance, to a sense of thwarted homing, and to a lost ime that no Happy Ending can redress: Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu: All our dream-worlds may come true. Fairly lands are fearsome too. As I wander far from view, Read, and bring me home to you." (Vanity Fair, 1999)
A very apposite start for an exile's dedication, the lines that begin with "Zembla" to build "Zafar", present both in Rushdies' book and at the end of Amis' essay .
A comment continues to baffle me. Writing about Asimov and his two-volume autobiography ( "In Memory Yet Green; In Joy Still Felt"), Amis's set down: "Structurally, the autobiography makes an average collection of showbiz memoirs look like Nabokov's Speak, Memory. Furthermore, and on Asimov's own admission, nothing ever happened to him."
What did Amis mean by his words on autobiographies structurally and furthermore...?
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/