Subject
What does VN rail against?
From
Date
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
While looking for the book club reference in Strong Opinions, to help out
our NZ subscriber with his wager, I decided, just for fun, to compile some
of the things Nabokov rails against there (in addition to the Viennese
quack, of course):
Nothing bores me more than political novels and the literature of social
intent... My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty,
soft music... (3)
I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse
books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to
church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations. (18)
I have never belonged to any political party but have always loathed and
despised dictatorships and police states (47)
I enjoy retaliating when some pompous dunce finds fault with my
translations and divulges a farcical ignorance of the Russian language and
literature. (54)
The Doppelgaenger subject is a frightful bore. (83)
nothing dates quicker than radical youth, nor is there anything more
Philistine, more bourgeois, more ovine than this business of drug duncery.
(114)
I loathe popular pulp. I loathe go-go gangs, I loathe jungle music. I
loathe science fiction with its gals and goons, suspense and suspensories.
I especially loathe vulgar movies -- cripples raping nuns under tables or
naked-girl breasts squeezing against the tanned torsos of repulsive young
males. (117)
I loathe Van Veen. (120)
[I] can't tell a Democrat from a Republican and hate crowds and
demonstrations. (126)
I abhor the brutality of all brutes, white or black, brown or red. I
despise red knaves and pink fools. (133)
It is among the young that the greatest conformists and Philistines are
found, e.g., the hippies with their group beards and group protests.
Demonstrators at American universities care as little about education as
football fans who smash up subway stations in England care about soccer.
(139)
He also rails, as we all know, against Wilson, Dr. Zhivago, jazz -- but,
alas, no book clubs, unless my cursory re-perusal of SO missed it!
Galya Diment
From: ptudor@budfin.co.nz
Some assistance, please, from the list?
Despite his speaking engagements, VN famously had a low opinion of book
clubs, however where did he rail aginst them in print? Was it in "Strong
Opinions" or in "Lectures on Literature"? My apologies, this is not
serious academic query, rather an attempt to settle a small wager...
Paul Tudor Ph 64 9 3587035
Information Manager Fx 64 9 3582055
Buddle Findlay Email ptudor@budfin.co.nz
Level 13, 191-201 Queen St
P O Box 1433, Auckland
New Zealand "If you build it, he will come!"
While looking for the book club reference in Strong Opinions, to help out
our NZ subscriber with his wager, I decided, just for fun, to compile some
of the things Nabokov rails against there (in addition to the Viennese
quack, of course):
Nothing bores me more than political novels and the literature of social
intent... My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty,
soft music... (3)
I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse
books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to
church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations. (18)
I have never belonged to any political party but have always loathed and
despised dictatorships and police states (47)
I enjoy retaliating when some pompous dunce finds fault with my
translations and divulges a farcical ignorance of the Russian language and
literature. (54)
The Doppelgaenger subject is a frightful bore. (83)
nothing dates quicker than radical youth, nor is there anything more
Philistine, more bourgeois, more ovine than this business of drug duncery.
(114)
I loathe popular pulp. I loathe go-go gangs, I loathe jungle music. I
loathe science fiction with its gals and goons, suspense and suspensories.
I especially loathe vulgar movies -- cripples raping nuns under tables or
naked-girl breasts squeezing against the tanned torsos of repulsive young
males. (117)
I loathe Van Veen. (120)
[I] can't tell a Democrat from a Republican and hate crowds and
demonstrations. (126)
I abhor the brutality of all brutes, white or black, brown or red. I
despise red knaves and pink fools. (133)
It is among the young that the greatest conformists and Philistines are
found, e.g., the hippies with their group beards and group protests.
Demonstrators at American universities care as little about education as
football fans who smash up subway stations in England care about soccer.
(139)
He also rails, as we all know, against Wilson, Dr. Zhivago, jazz -- but,
alas, no book clubs, unless my cursory re-perusal of SO missed it!
Galya Diment
From: ptudor@budfin.co.nz
Some assistance, please, from the list?
Despite his speaking engagements, VN famously had a low opinion of book
clubs, however where did he rail aginst them in print? Was it in "Strong
Opinions" or in "Lectures on Literature"? My apologies, this is not
serious academic query, rather an attempt to settle a small wager...
Paul Tudor Ph 64 9 3587035
Information Manager Fx 64 9 3582055
Buddle Findlay Email ptudor@budfin.co.nz
Level 13, 191-201 Queen St
P O Box 1433, Auckland
New Zealand "If you build it, he will come!"