Subject
Re: Nabokov and Fitzgerald (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amy_Hendrick@BAYLOR.EDU
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
On Thu, 06 Mar 1997 >Joshua Roberts wrote:
>>------------------------------------------------------------------
> I think the answer is almost disagreeably simple: THE GREAT GATSBY,
>featuring the crassly anti-Semitic portrayal of Meyer Wolfsheim, "the man
>who fixed the World's Series back in 1919" with his "business gonnegtions,"
>could have done nothing but raise, not Nabokov's brows, but his hackles. As
>it did, and does, mine.
>
I find it a little difficult to believe that Nabokov's opinion about a novel
might be affected by a single racist portrait contained therein. I wouldn't have
guessed that even a protective sensitivity on his Jewish wife's behalf could
have led him to dismiss a work for ideological reasons, a practice he famously
loathed.
I'm interested, though--do you have other reasons for believing this possible?
Are there perhaps other instances of Nabokov's inability to practice his
particular brand of "art for art's sake"?
Christine Cavitt
From: Amy_Hendrick@BAYLOR.EDU
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
On Thu, 06 Mar 1997 >Joshua Roberts wrote:
>>------------------------------------------------------------------
> I think the answer is almost disagreeably simple: THE GREAT GATSBY,
>featuring the crassly anti-Semitic portrayal of Meyer Wolfsheim, "the man
>who fixed the World's Series back in 1919" with his "business gonnegtions,"
>could have done nothing but raise, not Nabokov's brows, but his hackles. As
>it did, and does, mine.
>
I find it a little difficult to believe that Nabokov's opinion about a novel
might be affected by a single racist portrait contained therein. I wouldn't have
guessed that even a protective sensitivity on his Jewish wife's behalf could
have led him to dismiss a work for ideological reasons, a practice he famously
loathed.
I'm interested, though--do you have other reasons for believing this possible?
Are there perhaps other instances of Nabokov's inability to practice his
particular brand of "art for art's sake"?
Christine Cavitt