Subject
Eliot & Nabokov (fwd)
Date
Body
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 22:59:21 -0400
From: Alphonse Vinh - Reference Library - x2350 <AVINH@npr.org>
Galya is right. VV loathed Eliot. I happen to love both VV and Eliot! Let us
not forget VV's parody of Eliot in LOLITA or his slap at the author of one of
the 20th century's great poems, THE FOUR QUARTETS, in ADA--cf. "Mr Sweeney, a
Jewish banker" and "The Wasteline", a satire on American eating habits.
Interesting to note that Eliot, like VV, might have become a successful
*French* author. Eliot was fluent in French and quite influenced by French
literature and thought. He spent a year in Belle Epoque Paris (I wish I could
have joined him) and had, for his French tutor, the French novelist,
Alain-Fournier. During this time, Eliot also attended lectures at the Sorbonne,
and developed a taste for Jules Laforgue who would influence his later poetry.
Like Nabokov, Eliot was a translator, and provided us with a wonderful version
of St-John Perse's magnificient ANABASIS. At one point, Eliot thought of
becoming a French writer. To think he might have joined my beloved Julien Green
as well as Samuel Beckett amongst Anglophone writers who adopted French for
their literary aspirations. Certainly, Nabokov thought of becoming l'ecrivain
Nabokoff, when he wrote "Mademoiselle O" in French. Whilst in Paris, Nabokov
knew quite a few members of the French intelligentsia. If Nabokov had been able
to obtain a professorship in Russian literature at the Sorbonne, and if the
Hitlerites had not continued the murderous conquest of Europe by overwhelming
France, I wonder if European literature would not have benefited from that
illustrious member of the Academie Francaise, Monsieur Wladimir Nabokoff,
ecrivain et homme scientifique.
//Alphonse Vinh
From: Alphonse Vinh - Reference Library - x2350 <AVINH@npr.org>
Galya is right. VV loathed Eliot. I happen to love both VV and Eliot! Let us
not forget VV's parody of Eliot in LOLITA or his slap at the author of one of
the 20th century's great poems, THE FOUR QUARTETS, in ADA--cf. "Mr Sweeney, a
Jewish banker" and "The Wasteline", a satire on American eating habits.
Interesting to note that Eliot, like VV, might have become a successful
*French* author. Eliot was fluent in French and quite influenced by French
literature and thought. He spent a year in Belle Epoque Paris (I wish I could
have joined him) and had, for his French tutor, the French novelist,
Alain-Fournier. During this time, Eliot also attended lectures at the Sorbonne,
and developed a taste for Jules Laforgue who would influence his later poetry.
Like Nabokov, Eliot was a translator, and provided us with a wonderful version
of St-John Perse's magnificient ANABASIS. At one point, Eliot thought of
becoming a French writer. To think he might have joined my beloved Julien Green
as well as Samuel Beckett amongst Anglophone writers who adopted French for
their literary aspirations. Certainly, Nabokov thought of becoming l'ecrivain
Nabokoff, when he wrote "Mademoiselle O" in French. Whilst in Paris, Nabokov
knew quite a few members of the French intelligentsia. If Nabokov had been able
to obtain a professorship in Russian literature at the Sorbonne, and if the
Hitlerites had not continued the murderous conquest of Europe by overwhelming
France, I wonder if European literature would not have benefited from that
illustrious member of the Academie Francaise, Monsieur Wladimir Nabokoff,
ecrivain et homme scientifique.
//Alphonse Vinh