Subject
Fw: ARE they sterile? Let's be honest...
From
Date
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Rodney Welch" <rodney41@mindspring.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (58
lines) ------------------
> Maybe this is as good a time as any to ask the group whether Dale Peck's
cranky, scattershot attack doesn't score a few points. No one who has read
Faulkner can deny there are incomprehensible rambles (although why he
restricted this comment to his late career is a mystery) and I personally
think DeLillo highly overrated -- although I'll keep Gravity's Rainbow,
Mason & Dixon, and the divine Ulysses, thank you very much. But while I'm
not sure exactly what Peck means by "late," I think you have to be a highly
committed or possibly career Nabokovian to enjoy "Transparent Things" and
(especially) "Look at the Harlequins," which cannot be said of their
predecessors (although some might include "Ada" in this group). I think of
them as the least of his books; some readers consign the bottom rungs to
"Bend Sinister" or "Laughter in the Dark," but both of those have a
compelling narrative drive that his last two novels simply do not.
>
> Rodney Welch
> Columbia, SC
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
> Sent: Jun 8, 2004 11:20 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
> .>
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (37
> lines) ------------------
> > Hard to believe The Atlantic is printing such bilge?the revenge of the
> > stupid really has infected almost every branch of literary discourse.
> >
> > GK
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Sent: 6/7/04 11:40 PM
> > Subject: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
> >
> > <http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop.gif>
> >
> >
> > Hatchet Jobs,
> > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1565848748/theatlanticmonthA/ref
> > =nosim/> by Dale Peck (New Press). In these essays Peck rightly
> > eviscerates contemporary "bombastic and befuddled" literary novelists
> > who have defined and adhere to "a tradition that has grown increasingly
> > esoteric and exclusionary, falsely intellectual and alienating to the
> > mass of readers." He excoriates the McSweeney's crowd and "the
> > ridiculous dithering of John Barth ... [and] the reductive cardboard
> > constructions of Donald Barthelme," and would excise from the modern
> > canon "nearly all of Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo," and?while he's at
> > it?"the diarrheic flow of words that is Ulysses ... the incomprehensible
> > ramblings of late Faulkner and the sterile inventions of late Nabokov."
> > He correctly maintains that in writing "for one another rather than some
> > more or less common reader," th! ese writers have created a situation in
> > which "the members of the educated bourgeoisie ... are sick and tired of
> > feeling like they've somehow failed the modern novel." In his meticulous
> > attention to diction, his savage wit, his exact and rollicking prose,
> > his fierce devotion to stylistic and intellectual precision, and?of
> > course?his disdain for pseudo-intellectual flatulence, Peck is Mencken's
> > heir (although he's got to curb his lazy use of expletives). He writes
> > that this collection marks the end of his hatchet jobs. For the sake of
> > the republic of letters, he'd better change his mind.
> > <<logotop.gif>>
>
>
>
From: "Rodney Welch" <rodney41@mindspring.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (58
lines) ------------------
> Maybe this is as good a time as any to ask the group whether Dale Peck's
cranky, scattershot attack doesn't score a few points. No one who has read
Faulkner can deny there are incomprehensible rambles (although why he
restricted this comment to his late career is a mystery) and I personally
think DeLillo highly overrated -- although I'll keep Gravity's Rainbow,
Mason & Dixon, and the divine Ulysses, thank you very much. But while I'm
not sure exactly what Peck means by "late," I think you have to be a highly
committed or possibly career Nabokovian to enjoy "Transparent Things" and
(especially) "Look at the Harlequins," which cannot be said of their
predecessors (although some might include "Ada" in this group). I think of
them as the least of his books; some readers consign the bottom rungs to
"Bend Sinister" or "Laughter in the Dark," but both of those have a
compelling narrative drive that his last two novels simply do not.
>
> Rodney Welch
> Columbia, SC
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
> Sent: Jun 8, 2004 11:20 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
> .>
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (37
> lines) ------------------
> > Hard to believe The Atlantic is printing such bilge?the revenge of the
> > stupid really has infected almost every branch of literary discourse.
> >
> > GK
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Sent: 6/7/04 11:40 PM
> > Subject: the sterile inventions of late Nabokov
> >
> > <http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop.gif>
> >
> >
> > Hatchet Jobs,
> > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1565848748/theatlanticmonthA/ref
> > =nosim/> by Dale Peck (New Press). In these essays Peck rightly
> > eviscerates contemporary "bombastic and befuddled" literary novelists
> > who have defined and adhere to "a tradition that has grown increasingly
> > esoteric and exclusionary, falsely intellectual and alienating to the
> > mass of readers." He excoriates the McSweeney's crowd and "the
> > ridiculous dithering of John Barth ... [and] the reductive cardboard
> > constructions of Donald Barthelme," and would excise from the modern
> > canon "nearly all of Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo," and?while he's at
> > it?"the diarrheic flow of words that is Ulysses ... the incomprehensible
> > ramblings of late Faulkner and the sterile inventions of late Nabokov."
> > He correctly maintains that in writing "for one another rather than some
> > more or less common reader," th! ese writers have created a situation in
> > which "the members of the educated bourgeoisie ... are sick and tired of
> > feeling like they've somehow failed the modern novel." In his meticulous
> > attention to diction, his savage wit, his exact and rollicking prose,
> > his fierce devotion to stylistic and intellectual precision, and?of
> > course?his disdain for pseudo-intellectual flatulence, Peck is Mencken's
> > heir (although he's got to curb his lazy use of expletives). He writes
> > that this collection marks the end of his hatchet jobs. For the sake of
> > the republic of letters, he'd better change his mind.
> > <<logotop.gif>>
>
>
>