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Fw: Prefaces and Amis
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (66
lines) ------------------
> I might imagine Amis might have been able to work up a little more
> indignation. Removing such a vital part of the book is hardly naive-it's
> unspeakably dumb. I suspect Amis might have been oddly flattered. This
> should not have been the case.
>
> But all this reminds me of the fact that many of the book's readers do in
> fact, skip the preface entirely. One might surmise that one reader many
may
> call distinguished did the very thing. In his discursive 1971 novel
> "Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things," Gilbert Sorrentino gets a bit
> indignant himself ruminating on the post-"Lolita" life of Dolores Haze. I
> don't have the actual book in front of me (nor shall I ever, because after
> reading the passage I tossed it out, and decided to never have anything to
> do with Sorrentino again) but the passage made it pretty clear that
> Sorrentino was A) writing in his own voice, not that of any "unreliable"
> narrator and B) absolutely unaware that Dolores Haze is dead as the book
> begins (is that a spoiler?) indicating that he either skipped Mr. Ray's
> words or wasn't able to put two and two together. Indolence or
> ignorance-either quality seemed to me a sufficient reason to shun this
> writer for the rest of my days.
>
> GK
>
> > ----------
> > From: D. Barton Johnson
> > Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 11:23 AM
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Subject: Fw: Prefaces and Amis
> >
> > EDNOTE. Suellen Stringer-Hye is the long time compiler of a series of
> > "Collations" summariziing news of VN in the media. Many of these are now
> > in
> > the Zembla web site.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stringer-Hye, Suellen" <suellen.stringer-hye@vanderbilt.edu>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (24
> > lines) ------------------
> > > Combining two recent threads. From VNColations #10
> > >
> > > ***********************************
> > > The November 16, Evening Standard reports this amusing anecdote.
> > > Everyman Press, for a new edition of Lolita has,
> > > "...just made a textual error in a new edition for the Everyman
> > > Library resulting in the abandonment of its first run. Such a
> > > disaster was the last thing the firm had in mind when it
> > > commissioned Martin Amis ... to write a fresh introduction to the
> > > novel.
> > >
> > > So delighted was the publisher, David Campbell, with Amis's 19
> > > pages that he substituted them for the book's foreward, written by
> > > John Ray Jr, PhD."
> > >
> > > Amis called it a "a naive editorial error," a fact that does not in
> > > any way diminish its charm.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------
> > > Stringer-Hye, Suellen
> > > Vanderbilt University
> > > Email: suellen.stringer-hye@Vanderbilt.Edu
> > >
> >
> >
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (66
lines) ------------------
> I might imagine Amis might have been able to work up a little more
> indignation. Removing such a vital part of the book is hardly naive-it's
> unspeakably dumb. I suspect Amis might have been oddly flattered. This
> should not have been the case.
>
> But all this reminds me of the fact that many of the book's readers do in
> fact, skip the preface entirely. One might surmise that one reader many
may
> call distinguished did the very thing. In his discursive 1971 novel
> "Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things," Gilbert Sorrentino gets a bit
> indignant himself ruminating on the post-"Lolita" life of Dolores Haze. I
> don't have the actual book in front of me (nor shall I ever, because after
> reading the passage I tossed it out, and decided to never have anything to
> do with Sorrentino again) but the passage made it pretty clear that
> Sorrentino was A) writing in his own voice, not that of any "unreliable"
> narrator and B) absolutely unaware that Dolores Haze is dead as the book
> begins (is that a spoiler?) indicating that he either skipped Mr. Ray's
> words or wasn't able to put two and two together. Indolence or
> ignorance-either quality seemed to me a sufficient reason to shun this
> writer for the rest of my days.
>
> GK
>
> > ----------
> > From: D. Barton Johnson
> > Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 11:23 AM
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Subject: Fw: Prefaces and Amis
> >
> > EDNOTE. Suellen Stringer-Hye is the long time compiler of a series of
> > "Collations" summariziing news of VN in the media. Many of these are now
> > in
> > the Zembla web site.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stringer-Hye, Suellen" <suellen.stringer-hye@vanderbilt.edu>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (24
> > lines) ------------------
> > > Combining two recent threads. From VNColations #10
> > >
> > > ***********************************
> > > The November 16, Evening Standard reports this amusing anecdote.
> > > Everyman Press, for a new edition of Lolita has,
> > > "...just made a textual error in a new edition for the Everyman
> > > Library resulting in the abandonment of its first run. Such a
> > > disaster was the last thing the firm had in mind when it
> > > commissioned Martin Amis ... to write a fresh introduction to the
> > > novel.
> > >
> > > So delighted was the publisher, David Campbell, with Amis's 19
> > > pages that he substituted them for the book's foreward, written by
> > > John Ray Jr, PhD."
> > >
> > > Amis called it a "a naive editorial error," a fact that does not in
> > > any way diminish its charm.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------
> > > Stringer-Hye, Suellen
> > > Vanderbilt University
> > > Email: suellen.stringer-hye@Vanderbilt.Edu
> > >
> >
> >