Subject
VN bibliography (fwd)
Date
Body
From: ESAMPVN@aol.com
1) In the Fall 1996 _Slavic & East European Journal_ (Vol 40, No 3), a review
of _For SK: In Celebration of the Life and Career of Simon Karlinsky_
(Michael S. Flier & Robert P. Hughes, eds.), by Jerome H. Katsell, includes
the following paragraph on the two Nabokov articles included in the
Festschrift:
Nabokov is also well served in the present volume. V.E. Alexandrov in
"The Pleasures of Fate, or Why Free Will and Chance are Incompatible with
Nabokov's Artistic Form," explains that free will and chance cannot exist in
Nabokov's work because he and his characters "are trapped in fatidic webs
that abut a transcendent realm." There are two reasons for this
circumstance: 1) Nabokov's belief in a metaphysical agency that is the
world's essential ordering principle, which is glimpsed only in moments of
creative epiphany; and 2) a reading process in which Nabokov's readers must
"inevitably search for connections among details that will allow them to fit
whatever they focus on into system of meaningful relations." More a memoir
of Karlinsky-inspired research into Nabokoviana than a theoretical piece,
Brian Boyd's "Nabokov's Russian Years Revisited" describes new discoveries
clarifying certain issues in his subject's life and art. Thus, for example:
Nabokov was baptized at the church of Saint Spiridon Timifuntsky; he learned
to write in Russian only in 1906 at age seven; Nabokov's darker side appears
in a letter of 1944 which describes childhood fears and obsessions, and
nighmares from which he suffered about twice weekly in adulthood; records of
the Tenishev school reveal a broad exposure to German and early familiarity
with Goethe's "Erl-Konig," reflected in _Pale Fire_; finally, Nabokov's early
awareness of _Babbit_ and _An American Tragedy_, as attested by a former
Berlin pupil, leads to an interesting discussion of _Mashen'ka_ (1926) and
_Korol', dama, valet_ (1928) as representing inner polemics with Sinclair
Lewis and Theodore Dreiser (for example, creative businessman hero as
creative anti-Babbitt).
2) The Library of America Nabokov volumes are listed in the November 8 1996
Edward R. Hamilton catalog, at $24.50 ea (pp. 12, 13, and 15). Amusingly,
the blurb for the middle volume refers to "the ostensibly autobiographical
poem 'Pale Fire'."
Hamilton's address is: Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller, Falls Village, CT
06031-5000.
3) The Princeton University Press sale catalog lists the Boyd biography at $9
each for the paperback; $19 each for the hardcover. It also lists John Burt
Foster's _Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism, at $16 (hardcover).
Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ 08540;
1-800-777-4726; Fax 1-800-999-1958; on-line catalog http://pup.princeton.edu.
Sale prices good through Jan 31.
4) The blurb for John Barth's _Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera_ in
Daedalus Books Fall 1996 catalog cites a Chicago Tribune reviewer (writing
about _The Voyage of Someone the Sailor_): "There are rich rewards. Chief
among them is a lapidary prose style that out-Nabokovs Nabokov."
Earl Sampson
Boulder Colorado
1) In the Fall 1996 _Slavic & East European Journal_ (Vol 40, No 3), a review
of _For SK: In Celebration of the Life and Career of Simon Karlinsky_
(Michael S. Flier & Robert P. Hughes, eds.), by Jerome H. Katsell, includes
the following paragraph on the two Nabokov articles included in the
Festschrift:
Nabokov is also well served in the present volume. V.E. Alexandrov in
"The Pleasures of Fate, or Why Free Will and Chance are Incompatible with
Nabokov's Artistic Form," explains that free will and chance cannot exist in
Nabokov's work because he and his characters "are trapped in fatidic webs
that abut a transcendent realm." There are two reasons for this
circumstance: 1) Nabokov's belief in a metaphysical agency that is the
world's essential ordering principle, which is glimpsed only in moments of
creative epiphany; and 2) a reading process in which Nabokov's readers must
"inevitably search for connections among details that will allow them to fit
whatever they focus on into system of meaningful relations." More a memoir
of Karlinsky-inspired research into Nabokoviana than a theoretical piece,
Brian Boyd's "Nabokov's Russian Years Revisited" describes new discoveries
clarifying certain issues in his subject's life and art. Thus, for example:
Nabokov was baptized at the church of Saint Spiridon Timifuntsky; he learned
to write in Russian only in 1906 at age seven; Nabokov's darker side appears
in a letter of 1944 which describes childhood fears and obsessions, and
nighmares from which he suffered about twice weekly in adulthood; records of
the Tenishev school reveal a broad exposure to German and early familiarity
with Goethe's "Erl-Konig," reflected in _Pale Fire_; finally, Nabokov's early
awareness of _Babbit_ and _An American Tragedy_, as attested by a former
Berlin pupil, leads to an interesting discussion of _Mashen'ka_ (1926) and
_Korol', dama, valet_ (1928) as representing inner polemics with Sinclair
Lewis and Theodore Dreiser (for example, creative businessman hero as
creative anti-Babbitt).
2) The Library of America Nabokov volumes are listed in the November 8 1996
Edward R. Hamilton catalog, at $24.50 ea (pp. 12, 13, and 15). Amusingly,
the blurb for the middle volume refers to "the ostensibly autobiographical
poem 'Pale Fire'."
Hamilton's address is: Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller, Falls Village, CT
06031-5000.
3) The Princeton University Press sale catalog lists the Boyd biography at $9
each for the paperback; $19 each for the hardcover. It also lists John Burt
Foster's _Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism, at $16 (hardcover).
Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ 08540;
1-800-777-4726; Fax 1-800-999-1958; on-line catalog http://pup.princeton.edu.
Sale prices good through Jan 31.
4) The blurb for John Barth's _Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera_ in
Daedalus Books Fall 1996 catalog cites a Chicago Tribune reviewer (writing
about _The Voyage of Someone the Sailor_): "There are rich rewards. Chief
among them is a lapidary prose style that out-Nabokovs Nabokov."
Earl Sampson
Boulder Colorado