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Re: NABOKOV'S DISMISSALS ...
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I find this refutation of patrician claim quite telling and to the point. It
is in Russian literary and critical tradition to zero on written word at
expense of reverence. Patricians and elites do not take root in stern
Russian culture which Mikhail Bulgakov aptly meant, when comparing them with
pineapples in greenhouses. This is why literary elite became a two word
idiom in English but, when translated in Russian, jars ear. Admittedly,
‘patrician’ is thrown around Nabokov by people attached to their ‘twin
peaksÂ’, by elite subculture. Likewise, some ventured in this venue to
ridicule VN as ‘god’. Nice try. But there is so much in VN oeuvre that
resists canon, while icons of latte modernity, Amis and Below included,
practically invite(d) it, alive. I like consistency of destroying canon
while not accepting it. If we are to play the ‘greatness’ game, lets use
two-part litmus test of canon and be fair.
- George Shimanovich
Martin Amis, who views Saul Bellow and Nabokov as his “twin peaks,” his
personal novelists of the twentieth century, attempts to explain NabokovÂ’s
wounding evaluation of Bellow by saying that “Nabokov clearly derived
sensual pleasure from being dismissive: it is the patrician in him.” This
theory is allied to the perception that Nabokov and most of Russia’s émigré
intellectuals were subject to for years: as fallen, embittered aristocrats.
A frustrating label that Nabokov alluded to in his introduction to The Gift,
his longest treatment of the émigré scene in Europe. “We remained unknown to
American intellectuals (who, bewitched by Communist propaganda, saw us
merely as villainous generals, oil magnates, and gaunt ladies with
lorgnettes).” Amis’s theory is as incomplete as the rest. The violence of
NabokovÂ’s dismissals can be attributed both to his wit, which he was always
hesitant to leave dormant, and to his distinct artistic sense. There is
something either vaguely or powerfully Nabokovian about the strong details
he singles out from the stories he loves and those he is sceptical of: they
have that distinct, idiosyncratic power that the best of NabokovÂ’s own
details do. His tendency was to dismiss authors who were toiling in what he
thought of as a useless and infertile territory of literary exploration.
From an analysis of the long list of authors that Nabokov dismissed, we can
draw up some demarcations of this negative territory, but it remains both
distinct and untraceable, a phantom quantity that is as impressive and
formless as the brilliance of NabokovÂ’s own work.
Search <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html> the Nabokv-L
archive at UCSB
Contact <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
co-editors.
Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
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
is in Russian literary and critical tradition to zero on written word at
expense of reverence. Patricians and elites do not take root in stern
Russian culture which Mikhail Bulgakov aptly meant, when comparing them with
pineapples in greenhouses. This is why literary elite became a two word
idiom in English but, when translated in Russian, jars ear. Admittedly,
‘patrician’ is thrown around Nabokov by people attached to their ‘twin
peaksÂ’, by elite subculture. Likewise, some ventured in this venue to
ridicule VN as ‘god’. Nice try. But there is so much in VN oeuvre that
resists canon, while icons of latte modernity, Amis and Below included,
practically invite(d) it, alive. I like consistency of destroying canon
while not accepting it. If we are to play the ‘greatness’ game, lets use
two-part litmus test of canon and be fair.
- George Shimanovich
Martin Amis, who views Saul Bellow and Nabokov as his “twin peaks,” his
personal novelists of the twentieth century, attempts to explain NabokovÂ’s
wounding evaluation of Bellow by saying that “Nabokov clearly derived
sensual pleasure from being dismissive: it is the patrician in him.” This
theory is allied to the perception that Nabokov and most of Russia’s émigré
intellectuals were subject to for years: as fallen, embittered aristocrats.
A frustrating label that Nabokov alluded to in his introduction to The Gift,
his longest treatment of the émigré scene in Europe. “We remained unknown to
American intellectuals (who, bewitched by Communist propaganda, saw us
merely as villainous generals, oil magnates, and gaunt ladies with
lorgnettes).” Amis’s theory is as incomplete as the rest. The violence of
NabokovÂ’s dismissals can be attributed both to his wit, which he was always
hesitant to leave dormant, and to his distinct artistic sense. There is
something either vaguely or powerfully Nabokovian about the strong details
he singles out from the stories he loves and those he is sceptical of: they
have that distinct, idiosyncratic power that the best of NabokovÂ’s own
details do. His tendency was to dismiss authors who were toiling in what he
thought of as a useless and infertile territory of literary exploration.
From an analysis of the long list of authors that Nabokov dismissed, we can
draw up some demarcations of this negative territory, but it remains both
distinct and untraceable, a phantom quantity that is as impressive and
formless as the brilliance of NabokovÂ’s own work.
Search <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html> the Nabokv-L
archive at UCSB
Contact <mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
co-editors.
Visit Zembla <http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm>
View Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm>
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