Subject
Barbara Braun in "Conclisive Evidence"
Date
Body
The wrist-slapping by a scholar of Dieter Zimmer's standing is welcome
and salutory. An informal network forum needs to have the air cleansed now
and then, and our improbable hypotheses pointed out as such. At the same time
I have several reservations about his message, one procedural and one
substantive.
1. The first one has already been made by Tom Bolt - namely that we are not
expected to produce finished literary criticism in this forum and that
something akin to, but not as undisciplined as, free association is
welcome. And perhaps especially now that a new text of the master has
appeared for us to play with, with new puzzles for us to try to figure out.
If some early guesses are wide of the mark, they will certainly be
abandoned. The very value of such a net, it seems to me, is that we have a
chance to try out as many suggestions as possible - and abandon most of
them as we get closer to a consensus. Am I wrong in seeing the forum as a
kind of lively classroom in which the "students" are encouraged to offer
their views, which the "teachers" can (as in this case) correct?
2. My second comment is substantive. I think the name Barbara Braun poses
a puzzle that cannot be dismissed as easily as Dieter Zimmer proposes. The
basic given of the two books under review, and the two authors, is that
Barbara Braun is in nearly every way (except as one of five siblings) the
antithesis of Vladimir Nabokov. Barbara is thoroughly American, never
experienced exile or any serious displacement. She grew up in a secure
world "in which the tapping of sugar maples or the birthday cake Mother
made were natural and permanent fixtures." Everything is there but the
apple pie and ice cream. Her book, with its title recalling Abraham
Lincoln, is lucid ("we vividly visualize Miss Braun's college years") and
suffused with "deep human glow." No puzzles, no obscurities, no struggling
with New Yorker editors. Everything out front, wholesome all-American. All
this is clear. Now, doesn't the name Braun present, in this context, some
slight teasing, game, puzzle? To explain it away as does Dieter Zimmer does
(she is of German extraction but the name was not naturalized because of
the grandfather's distinction as "a great American educationalist") is to
duck the issue. The fact remains that we have a one-hundred per cent
American (who could have been a Cabot or a Brown - or a Cook) with a name
spelled in a conspicuously foreign form. Why? I hope that Dieter Zimmer's
remarks do not discourage further comments, even those from amateur
Nabokovians.
Robert Cook, University of Iceland
and salutory. An informal network forum needs to have the air cleansed now
and then, and our improbable hypotheses pointed out as such. At the same time
I have several reservations about his message, one procedural and one
substantive.
1. The first one has already been made by Tom Bolt - namely that we are not
expected to produce finished literary criticism in this forum and that
something akin to, but not as undisciplined as, free association is
welcome. And perhaps especially now that a new text of the master has
appeared for us to play with, with new puzzles for us to try to figure out.
If some early guesses are wide of the mark, they will certainly be
abandoned. The very value of such a net, it seems to me, is that we have a
chance to try out as many suggestions as possible - and abandon most of
them as we get closer to a consensus. Am I wrong in seeing the forum as a
kind of lively classroom in which the "students" are encouraged to offer
their views, which the "teachers" can (as in this case) correct?
2. My second comment is substantive. I think the name Barbara Braun poses
a puzzle that cannot be dismissed as easily as Dieter Zimmer proposes. The
basic given of the two books under review, and the two authors, is that
Barbara Braun is in nearly every way (except as one of five siblings) the
antithesis of Vladimir Nabokov. Barbara is thoroughly American, never
experienced exile or any serious displacement. She grew up in a secure
world "in which the tapping of sugar maples or the birthday cake Mother
made were natural and permanent fixtures." Everything is there but the
apple pie and ice cream. Her book, with its title recalling Abraham
Lincoln, is lucid ("we vividly visualize Miss Braun's college years") and
suffused with "deep human glow." No puzzles, no obscurities, no struggling
with New Yorker editors. Everything out front, wholesome all-American. All
this is clear. Now, doesn't the name Braun present, in this context, some
slight teasing, game, puzzle? To explain it away as does Dieter Zimmer does
(she is of German extraction but the name was not naturalized because of
the grandfather's distinction as "a great American educationalist") is to
duck the issue. The fact remains that we have a one-hundred per cent
American (who could have been a Cabot or a Brown - or a Cook) with a name
spelled in a conspicuously foreign form. Why? I hope that Dieter Zimmer's
remarks do not discourage further comments, even those from amateur
Nabokovians.
Robert Cook, University of Iceland