Subject
Re: Nabokov as Literary critic (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR's HEADLINE. "VN, the Critic, as Judge Howerton's Elephant"
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From: <phil@carolina.rr.com>
I tend to agree with Mr. Buschbaum's rather metaphorical assessment of N.'s
critical methods. For myself, I picture his critical readings, in fiction,
as from the perspective of a practicing author; one who wrote every day and
wrote the best he could every day. I see him reading very closely, putting
himself inside the sentences of the text, hearing them off his own tongue,
out of his own brain; not viewing them as a professor or professional critic
would, trained in, chained to, the esoterics of various literary theories,
attuned, re-tuning, to the latest of them. Rather, really reading them.
Listening to them. If they didn't work for him, they didn't work. Period.
He was a very smart, very well read man, with an exquisite sensitivity to
the possibilities, to the uses and the ecstasy of language. In this
respect, perhaps he was the elephant in the zoology department, stomping on
a few swollen toes, but he was my elephant. What was good enough for him is
good enough for me. There's not the time to read everything.
Phil Howerton
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 1999 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov as Literary critic
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Brad Buchsbaum <bbuchsba@aris.ss.uci.edu>
>
>
> I would just like to point out that Nabokov's critical faculties, located
> as they were in the spine and not the brain, relied a great deal more on
> tingle than effortful analysis. The whole of his critical stance toward an
> author is carried by the presence or absence of that greatest of
> physiological responses, that telltale shiver of approval. Given the
> essentially binary nature of the method, then, it shouldn't be surprising
> that Nabokov's opinions should frequently seem so peremptory, so flip, so
> totally unforgiving (backbones tend not to bend much). On the other hand,
> the Nabokov spine, though an inherently reflexive organ, can hardly be
> said to be an arbitrary one. The point being that Nabokov's critical
> judgments, whether backed up by lengthy written criticism (Cervantes,
> Dostoevsky) or not ("Emerson's poetry is delightful"), depend upon the
> electrical agitations of that selfsame bundle of nerve fibers.
>
> Brad Buchsbaum
> Department of Cognitive Science
> University of California, Irvine
---------------------
From: <phil@carolina.rr.com>
I tend to agree with Mr. Buschbaum's rather metaphorical assessment of N.'s
critical methods. For myself, I picture his critical readings, in fiction,
as from the perspective of a practicing author; one who wrote every day and
wrote the best he could every day. I see him reading very closely, putting
himself inside the sentences of the text, hearing them off his own tongue,
out of his own brain; not viewing them as a professor or professional critic
would, trained in, chained to, the esoterics of various literary theories,
attuned, re-tuning, to the latest of them. Rather, really reading them.
Listening to them. If they didn't work for him, they didn't work. Period.
He was a very smart, very well read man, with an exquisite sensitivity to
the possibilities, to the uses and the ecstasy of language. In this
respect, perhaps he was the elephant in the zoology department, stomping on
a few swollen toes, but he was my elephant. What was good enough for him is
good enough for me. There's not the time to read everything.
Phil Howerton
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 1999 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: Nabokov as Literary critic
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Brad Buchsbaum <bbuchsba@aris.ss.uci.edu>
>
>
> I would just like to point out that Nabokov's critical faculties, located
> as they were in the spine and not the brain, relied a great deal more on
> tingle than effortful analysis. The whole of his critical stance toward an
> author is carried by the presence or absence of that greatest of
> physiological responses, that telltale shiver of approval. Given the
> essentially binary nature of the method, then, it shouldn't be surprising
> that Nabokov's opinions should frequently seem so peremptory, so flip, so
> totally unforgiving (backbones tend not to bend much). On the other hand,
> the Nabokov spine, though an inherently reflexive organ, can hardly be
> said to be an arbitrary one. The point being that Nabokov's critical
> judgments, whether backed up by lengthy written criticism (Cervantes,
> Dostoevsky) or not ("Emerson's poetry is delightful"), depend upon the
> electrical agitations of that selfsame bundle of nerve fibers.
>
> Brad Buchsbaum
> Department of Cognitive Science
> University of California, Irvine