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EDITOR's NOTE. Jennifer Parson's posting below appeared on the NYT Times
Nabokov Forum today. It is addressed to lepidopterist Dr. Kurt Johnson who,
with Steve Coates, is author of _Nabokov's Blues_ (Cambridge, Mass; Zoland,
1999) .
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Parsons <jdparsons@home.com>
.
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (33
lines) ------------------
>Happy 101st Birthday V.N.!
>
>Just posted this in the NYT Nabokov forum and thought I'd send to
>L-Serve - hopefully not too out of the stream of conversation here -
>
>Dr. Johnson
>
>I think Nabokov's Blues is a wonderful book - I am thoroughly enjoying
>it (first chapter) and fascinated by it: it is thorough, fair and bang
>on right about everything (i.e. the way Nabokov's literary admirers
>view, with some confusion, his lepidoptery - not knowing quite what to
>make of it, how seriously he is taken by professionals in the field,
>etc). I love the way you begin by giving the views of other
>lepidopterists on Nabokov, from the 40's and beyond, allowing that
>people like Carpenter and Bowers, may not have meant to be disparaging
>in talking about the "Old World Tradition" of amateur naturalists, and
>his never rising "beyond the descriptive to the synthetic" etc, Dmitri's
>reaction notwithstanding, were "voicing honest opinions that to some
>degree reflected the values of academic hierarchy and Nabokov's place in
>it"; still, you say that the "lepidopterological truths" they hint at
>are "that Nabokov's scientific career resists summing up in quotable
>sound bites with little context" and "the freight that the word amateur
>can and does bear in scientific circles." Nabokov wouldn't argue I don't
>think that he was trying to do anything other than what he did which was
>to focus with loving and expert care and attention on a particular group
>of butterflies and attempt to identify and properly name and classify
>them - as opposed to being a theorist. I, a lay person, am not too
>clear on what all this means - but you make very interesting indeed.
>
> I feel certain that Nabokov would be very happy and gratified to read
>this book.
>
>"teddy"
Nabokov Forum today. It is addressed to lepidopterist Dr. Kurt Johnson who,
with Steve Coates, is author of _Nabokov's Blues_ (Cambridge, Mass; Zoland,
1999) .
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Parsons <jdparsons@home.com>
.
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (33
lines) ------------------
>Happy 101st Birthday V.N.!
>
>Just posted this in the NYT Nabokov forum and thought I'd send to
>L-Serve - hopefully not too out of the stream of conversation here -
>
>Dr. Johnson
>
>I think Nabokov's Blues is a wonderful book - I am thoroughly enjoying
>it (first chapter) and fascinated by it: it is thorough, fair and bang
>on right about everything (i.e. the way Nabokov's literary admirers
>view, with some confusion, his lepidoptery - not knowing quite what to
>make of it, how seriously he is taken by professionals in the field,
>etc). I love the way you begin by giving the views of other
>lepidopterists on Nabokov, from the 40's and beyond, allowing that
>people like Carpenter and Bowers, may not have meant to be disparaging
>in talking about the "Old World Tradition" of amateur naturalists, and
>his never rising "beyond the descriptive to the synthetic" etc, Dmitri's
>reaction notwithstanding, were "voicing honest opinions that to some
>degree reflected the values of academic hierarchy and Nabokov's place in
>it"; still, you say that the "lepidopterological truths" they hint at
>are "that Nabokov's scientific career resists summing up in quotable
>sound bites with little context" and "the freight that the word amateur
>can and does bear in scientific circles." Nabokov wouldn't argue I don't
>think that he was trying to do anything other than what he did which was
>to focus with loving and expert care and attention on a particular group
>of butterflies and attempt to identify and properly name and classify
>them - as opposed to being a theorist. I, a lay person, am not too
>clear on what all this means - but you make very interesting indeed.
>
> I feel certain that Nabokov would be very happy and gratified to read
>this book.
>
>"teddy"