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Re: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov/Paul de Man
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Andrew - you may be right there, though I just read a review and
apparently the critic (?) Paul de Man was part-inspiration for the
narrator. I wonder if there is a Nabokov-de Man link. That would be an
interesting connection.
Brian Howell
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:15:52 -0800, "Donald B. Johnson"
<chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> said:
> Brian,
>
> From the quote you offer, and the description of the Banville character
> as
> "some kind of academic or critic," it looks to me as if Banville may have
> been influenced not so much by Nabokov himself as by the Nabokov
> character
> Charles Kinbote in the novel Pale Fire.
>
> I'm not familiar with Mr. Banville's work, though, so I just throw out
> this
> thought for whatever it may be worth.
>
> Andrew
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 6:58 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov
>
>
> > Parallels between Nabokov and John Banville (sardonic tone,
> > mischievousness, confessional narrative, unreliable narrators etc.)
> > have been noted before, but I am currently reading Banville's _Shroud_,
> > whose protagonist (Axel Vander) is quite a dissimulator/unreliable
> > narrator. From my reading so far, he seems to have been some kind of
> > academic or critic and he offers up this summation. I thought Banville
> > could just as easily have had not just himself but Nabokov in mind when
> > he wrote the following (notwithstanding the unflattering tail-end of
> > this passage?):
> >
> > '. all were united in acclaiming my mastery of the language, the tone
> > and pitch of my singular voice; even my critics, and there were more
> > than a few of them, could only stand back and watch in frustration as
> > their best barbs skidded off the high gloss of my prose style. This
> > surprised as much as it pleased me; how they could not see, in hiding
> > behind the brashness and bravado of what I wrote, the trembling
> > autodidact hunched over his Webster's, his Chicago Manual, his Grammar
> > for Foreign Students? Perhaps it was the very bizarreries of usage
> > which
> > I unavoidably fell into that they took for the willed eccentricities in
> > which they imagined only a lord of language would dare to indulge.'
> > (pp.
> > 62-63, U.K. Picador edition).
> >
> > What is more, Axel Vander is almost an anagram (if that's possible) of
> > the name of the narrator of the first part of what I believe is a
> > trilogy in his previous novel, Eclipse - Alexander Cleave. Indeed, the
> > two narrators might be the same person, as Vander infers that he has
> > adopted a new identity. And I wonder if that Vander refers to the Van of
> > _Ada_?
> >
> > Brian Howell
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
apparently the critic (?) Paul de Man was part-inspiration for the
narrator. I wonder if there is a Nabokov-de Man link. That would be an
interesting connection.
Brian Howell
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:15:52 -0800, "Donald B. Johnson"
<chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> said:
> Brian,
>
> From the quote you offer, and the description of the Banville character
> as
> "some kind of academic or critic," it looks to me as if Banville may have
> been influenced not so much by Nabokov himself as by the Nabokov
> character
> Charles Kinbote in the novel Pale Fire.
>
> I'm not familiar with Mr. Banville's work, though, so I just throw out
> this
> thought for whatever it may be worth.
>
> Andrew
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 6:58 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov
>
>
> > Parallels between Nabokov and John Banville (sardonic tone,
> > mischievousness, confessional narrative, unreliable narrators etc.)
> > have been noted before, but I am currently reading Banville's _Shroud_,
> > whose protagonist (Axel Vander) is quite a dissimulator/unreliable
> > narrator. From my reading so far, he seems to have been some kind of
> > academic or critic and he offers up this summation. I thought Banville
> > could just as easily have had not just himself but Nabokov in mind when
> > he wrote the following (notwithstanding the unflattering tail-end of
> > this passage?):
> >
> > '. all were united in acclaiming my mastery of the language, the tone
> > and pitch of my singular voice; even my critics, and there were more
> > than a few of them, could only stand back and watch in frustration as
> > their best barbs skidded off the high gloss of my prose style. This
> > surprised as much as it pleased me; how they could not see, in hiding
> > behind the brashness and bravado of what I wrote, the trembling
> > autodidact hunched over his Webster's, his Chicago Manual, his Grammar
> > for Foreign Students? Perhaps it was the very bizarreries of usage
> > which
> > I unavoidably fell into that they took for the willed eccentricities in
> > which they imagined only a lord of language would dare to indulge.'
> > (pp.
> > 62-63, U.K. Picador edition).
> >
> > What is more, Axel Vander is almost an anagram (if that's possible) of
> > the name of the narrator of the first part of what I believe is a
> > trilogy in his previous novel, Eclipse - Alexander Cleave. Indeed, the
> > two narrators might be the same person, as Vander infers that he has
> > adopted a new identity. And I wonder if that Vander refers to the Van of
> > _Ada_?
> >
> > Brian Howell
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----