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Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand . . .
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Sandy Klein forwards this link to an article in the India Tribune, “Reading Rand,” which compares Ayn Rand to Vladimir Nabokov (a comparison that is also a topic Don Johnson has researched and discussed):
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061105/spectrum/main1.htm
There cannot have been two radically different Russian expatriates than Vladimir Nabokov (1899) and Ayn Rand. Nabokov, who was six years older to her but died five years earlier (1977) fled Russia, like Rand, after the Bolshevik Revolution. While Rand went straight to the United States in 1925, Nabokov lingered for years in Berlin and Paris and survived as a Russian writer and translator, before moving to the United States in the 1930s. Nabokov began writing in English only in the 1940s. Rand never wrote in Russian, and interestingly none of her works has been translated into Russian, though it has been into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hebrew apart from other European languages.
Lolita, the big novel by which Nabokov had won literary fame among the 20th century Western connoisseurs, is antipodal in nature to Rand’s Fountainhead. While Fountainhead won popular success, Lolita remained the prized possession of literary aesthetes. Both the novels were made into films, and the two authors wrote the screenplays for the film version of their respective novels. While the legendary Gary Cooper played Howard Roark in the film version of Fountainhead, British actor James Mason played Humbert Humbert, the old man who seduces teenager Lolita.
Though Nabokov moved to Switzerland in his later years, he was keen to be known as an American writer rather than a Russian writer. Rand won literary credentials as an American woman of letters without much ado. While Nabokov retained the aura of the old Russian aristocrat, Rand was the energetic middle class intellectual who was ready to take up cudgels for her cause in the public arena. Nabokov remained a naturalised American, and an exotic Russian till the last. Rand was a natural American, the public intellectual, the fierce priestess of middle class individualism and endeavour, the restless modern soul reaching out to greater achievements. In the process, she repelled many people, but she attracted many more.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061105/spectrum/main1.htm
There cannot have been two radically different Russian expatriates than Vladimir Nabokov (1899) and Ayn Rand. Nabokov, who was six years older to her but died five years earlier (1977) fled Russia, like Rand, after the Bolshevik Revolution. While Rand went straight to the United States in 1925, Nabokov lingered for years in Berlin and Paris and survived as a Russian writer and translator, before moving to the United States in the 1930s. Nabokov began writing in English only in the 1940s. Rand never wrote in Russian, and interestingly none of her works has been translated into Russian, though it has been into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hebrew apart from other European languages.
Lolita, the big novel by which Nabokov had won literary fame among the 20th century Western connoisseurs, is antipodal in nature to Rand’s Fountainhead. While Fountainhead won popular success, Lolita remained the prized possession of literary aesthetes. Both the novels were made into films, and the two authors wrote the screenplays for the film version of their respective novels. While the legendary Gary Cooper played Howard Roark in the film version of Fountainhead, British actor James Mason played Humbert Humbert, the old man who seduces teenager Lolita.
Though Nabokov moved to Switzerland in his later years, he was keen to be known as an American writer rather than a Russian writer. Rand won literary credentials as an American woman of letters without much ado. While Nabokov retained the aura of the old Russian aristocrat, Rand was the energetic middle class intellectual who was ready to take up cudgels for her cause in the public arena. Nabokov remained a naturalised American, and an exotic Russian till the last. Rand was a natural American, the public intellectual, the fierce priestess of middle class individualism and endeavour, the restless modern soul reaching out to greater achievements. In the process, she repelled many people, but she attracted many more.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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