Subject
Re: Best VN story? (fwd)
Date
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Tim Henderson <thenders@mail.lanline.com> wrote:
Why, I'll stick up for 'Aleppo' although I would think that 'Signs and
Symbols' might be more suitable for anthologies, a little less weird and
jarring, but just at the moment maybe the Holocaust is more clearly
visible on the public's horizon than mental illness, especially mental
illness depicted with less than optimisim of the everybody's-special
variety.
Personally I think of 'Aleppo' vs. 'Symbols' as Hamlet vs. Othello (or
Macbeth)...the others are more sharply focused, more tightly
organized....Hamlet is a mess, but don't you love it more? Same goes for
'Aleppo' in my book...You can't sum it up but individual scenes linger
more memorably -- the rose, the ants, the rubber-tipped cane, the
'green vacuum of Central Park,' the fish scales caught in the net, the
required Shakespeare visit (to Othello!) in search of the title
quote...
> From: "Welch, Rodney" <RWelch@SCES.ORG>
>
> What is the consensus of opinion here regarding Nabokov's best
>
> story?
> "Aleppo" ranks rather low on my own list, and I suspect Updike
> chose
> it because it's a less obvious choice than "Signs and Symbols" (VN's
> very
> best, to my mind) or such gems as "The Vane Sisters," "Cloud, Castle,
> Lake,"
> "Perfection," "Spring in Fialta" or "First Love" ("that darling of
> anthologists," as VN himself once put it.)
> I'd be interested to know what single story other Nabokovians
> would
> select.
>
> Rodney Welch
> Columbia, SC
>
> ---Original Message-----
> From: Donald Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, April 10, 1999 1:42 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu
> Subject: VN Bibliography (fwd)
>
> From: Earl Sampson <esampson@cu.campuscwix.net>
>
> FYI: VN is represented by "That in Aleppo Once..." in THE BEST
> AMERICAN
> SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY (Houghton Mifflin, eds. John Updike and
> Katrina Kenison).
--
Tim Henderson, Asst. Systems Editor
The Journal News
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