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Re: VN, Freud, Boyd ( (fwd)
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Date
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***I am reposting BB's message with a preface which should have
accompanied it:***
Brian Boyd, who checks his e-mail only intermittently, apologizes for
sending this reply as soon as he read Jim Morrison's initial
message, without noticing as he has since that the discussion
had continued over the intervening days.
Dear List,
I dish out criticism, and am prepared to take it.
As it happens, Jim, the reason that I haven't replied to Dmitri
Nabokov's posting on the list is that I replied to it by a 15000
word article I wrote last month for Nabokov Studies (the issue should
be out in June) and am working on a book on _Pale Fire_ of which I
hope to finish a first draft by the end of this month. I really don't
want to pre-empt everything in article and book, but let me just say
that I have in fact abandoned the Shade-as-sole author position and
arrived at something in some senses more radical that no one else
seems to have glimpsed. In both article and book I discuss both
the attractions and the weaknesses of the Kinbotean and Shadean
readings, and show that at least they respond to features of the book
that the resolute anti-Shadeans etc. had for the most part signally
failed to consider. If this paragraph resurrects the _Pale Fire_
debate on the list, I hope you will understand my not participating.
Writing a book I had not planned for, under intense pressure to
return to other projects, is making more than enough demands on my
time.
As for my "No novelist knows the art of preparation better than
Nabokov," I am perfectly happy to stand by that. Nabokov uses such
constructions writing of Gogol; does that bother you? Had even he
read everything ever written? The art of preparation is not something
most novelists ever talk about; do you know anyone who has singled it
out other than VN? I was basing my claim on Nabokov's performance
compared to that of some of the acknowledged masters of the novel,
say Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, James, Joyce, Proust.
Flaubert is someone Nabokov particularly singles out for his
advancing the arts of preparation and transition. As far as I can see
Nabokov handles preparation considerably better than even Flaubert
or Joyce. Isn't my claim rather like our habit of calling the current
world record holder for the 100 metres dash the world's fastest man.
Have we really timed everybody in the world over that distance? No,
but comparing him to others who excel suffices to make a confident
(though of course fallible) judgment.
As for Freud, do you really need him to make the claim that the first
part of _Lolita_ is about sexual desire and the second part about
death, if that's what you want to say?
From: Brian Boyd
English Department
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand
Fax (64 9) 373 7429 Tel (64 9) 373 7599 ext 7480
Home fax: (64 9) 620 6520 Home tel: (64 9) 620 6597
e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz
accompanied it:***
Brian Boyd, who checks his e-mail only intermittently, apologizes for
sending this reply as soon as he read Jim Morrison's initial
message, without noticing as he has since that the discussion
had continued over the intervening days.
Dear List,
I dish out criticism, and am prepared to take it.
As it happens, Jim, the reason that I haven't replied to Dmitri
Nabokov's posting on the list is that I replied to it by a 15000
word article I wrote last month for Nabokov Studies (the issue should
be out in June) and am working on a book on _Pale Fire_ of which I
hope to finish a first draft by the end of this month. I really don't
want to pre-empt everything in article and book, but let me just say
that I have in fact abandoned the Shade-as-sole author position and
arrived at something in some senses more radical that no one else
seems to have glimpsed. In both article and book I discuss both
the attractions and the weaknesses of the Kinbotean and Shadean
readings, and show that at least they respond to features of the book
that the resolute anti-Shadeans etc. had for the most part signally
failed to consider. If this paragraph resurrects the _Pale Fire_
debate on the list, I hope you will understand my not participating.
Writing a book I had not planned for, under intense pressure to
return to other projects, is making more than enough demands on my
time.
As for my "No novelist knows the art of preparation better than
Nabokov," I am perfectly happy to stand by that. Nabokov uses such
constructions writing of Gogol; does that bother you? Had even he
read everything ever written? The art of preparation is not something
most novelists ever talk about; do you know anyone who has singled it
out other than VN? I was basing my claim on Nabokov's performance
compared to that of some of the acknowledged masters of the novel,
say Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, James, Joyce, Proust.
Flaubert is someone Nabokov particularly singles out for his
advancing the arts of preparation and transition. As far as I can see
Nabokov handles preparation considerably better than even Flaubert
or Joyce. Isn't my claim rather like our habit of calling the current
world record holder for the 100 metres dash the world's fastest man.
Have we really timed everybody in the world over that distance? No,
but comparing him to others who excel suffices to make a confident
(though of course fallible) judgment.
As for Freud, do you really need him to make the claim that the first
part of _Lolita_ is about sexual desire and the second part about
death, if that's what you want to say?
From: Brian Boyd
English Department
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand
Fax (64 9) 373 7429 Tel (64 9) 373 7599 ext 7480
Home fax: (64 9) 620 6520 Home tel: (64 9) 620 6597
e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz