Subject
Re: Nabokov and Faulkner (fwd)
Date
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 14:01:04 -0700
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Nabokov and Faulkner (fwd)
From: Rodney Welch <rwelch@scjob.sces.org>
Just my opinion, Matt, but I'd almost bet money that VN hated everything
Faulkner ever wrote.
There is, as you point out, the letter to Wilson regarding Light in
August ("quite impossible Biblical rumblings"); there was also an
interview in a university newspaper, quoted by Boyd, in which he gave
Faulkner and Mann grades of "Z."
But I think VN saved his most stinging critique of the man from
Oxford for Pale Fire -- where Kinbote mistakenly believes that the Shades
have left him a gift of books, when in fact the books had merely been set
out in the yard for the garbageman. The books, it should come as no
surprise, are by Mann and Faulkner; later, in Ada, Falknermann.
Personally, I've always found this a bit hard to resolve, as I respect
both Nabokov and Faulkner, although I don't believe the latter holds up
as well book for book. I read S&F again a few years ago and found it just
as powerful as ever. I read Absalom! Absalom! twice back to back, and
found it full to bursting of fulsome nonsense. It never quite justifies
its agonizingly deliberate obscurity -- "quite impossible," indeed.
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 14:01:04 -0700
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Nabokov and Faulkner (fwd)
From: Rodney Welch <rwelch@scjob.sces.org>
Just my opinion, Matt, but I'd almost bet money that VN hated everything
Faulkner ever wrote.
There is, as you point out, the letter to Wilson regarding Light in
August ("quite impossible Biblical rumblings"); there was also an
interview in a university newspaper, quoted by Boyd, in which he gave
Faulkner and Mann grades of "Z."
But I think VN saved his most stinging critique of the man from
Oxford for Pale Fire -- where Kinbote mistakenly believes that the Shades
have left him a gift of books, when in fact the books had merely been set
out in the yard for the garbageman. The books, it should come as no
surprise, are by Mann and Faulkner; later, in Ada, Falknermann.
Personally, I've always found this a bit hard to resolve, as I respect
both Nabokov and Faulkner, although I don't believe the latter holds up
as well book for book. I read S&F again a few years ago and found it just
as powerful as ever. I read Absalom! Absalom! twice back to back, and
found it full to bursting of fulsome nonsense. It never quite justifies
its agonizingly deliberate obscurity -- "quite impossible," indeed.