Subject
query: Nabokov on his Russian & English style (fwd)
From
Date
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For my comments see below. GD
From: helen schroeder <fe6y383@public.uni-hamburg.de>
Hello!
I've been reading Jane Grayson´s interesting book on distinctive features
and developments of
Nabokov´s English & Russian style ("Nabokov Translated" 1977).
Unfortunately, she leaves the Russian quotes untranslated, so now I´m left with
tantalizing allusions to the content of a quote from VN´s afterword to the
Russian "Lolita":
apparently, he not only sums up his view on the differences between the two
languages, but also calls his own Russian an instrument with "rusted
strings".
Since to my (admittedly limited) knowledge he never made a public remark
like that in English,
I would very much like to read the whole thing.
Would anyone know of an English translation of that afterword? Or a
similar comparison /
remark in a letter, interview etc.? Thanks very much!
Helen
***VN often discusses his English in his letters to Wilson, where he calls
it "imitation English" and "pidgin English" (NWL, 36, 39). For
further discussion and references, see Brian Boyd, _American Years_,
especially the chapters dealing with VN submitting stories to _The New
Yorker_; Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, _Allien Tongues: Bilingual
Russian Writers of the First Emigration_, Ithaca, 1989, and (if I may:) my
article, "English as Sanctuary: Nabokov and Brodsky's Autobiographical
Writings," _in Slavic and East European Review 3_ (Fall1993):
346-61. GD***
From: helen schroeder <fe6y383@public.uni-hamburg.de>
Hello!
I've been reading Jane Grayson´s interesting book on distinctive features
and developments of
Nabokov´s English & Russian style ("Nabokov Translated" 1977).
Unfortunately, she leaves the Russian quotes untranslated, so now I´m left with
tantalizing allusions to the content of a quote from VN´s afterword to the
Russian "Lolita":
apparently, he not only sums up his view on the differences between the two
languages, but also calls his own Russian an instrument with "rusted
strings".
Since to my (admittedly limited) knowledge he never made a public remark
like that in English,
I would very much like to read the whole thing.
Would anyone know of an English translation of that afterword? Or a
similar comparison /
remark in a letter, interview etc.? Thanks very much!
Helen
***VN often discusses his English in his letters to Wilson, where he calls
it "imitation English" and "pidgin English" (NWL, 36, 39). For
further discussion and references, see Brian Boyd, _American Years_,
especially the chapters dealing with VN submitting stories to _The New
Yorker_; Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, _Allien Tongues: Bilingual
Russian Writers of the First Emigration_, Ithaca, 1989, and (if I may:) my
article, "English as Sanctuary: Nabokov and Brodsky's Autobiographical
Writings," _in Slavic and East European Review 3_ (Fall1993):
346-61. GD***