Subject
NABOKOV IN ICELAND
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. Professor Robert Cook of the University of Iceland in
Rekjavik <rcook@rhi.hi.is> supplies the following account of the state of
Nabokov studies in Iceland. Iceland is the 19th country represented by
subscribers to NABOKV-L and has just been joined by Korea making 20.
Happy New Year to all! S novym godom vsem!
--------------------------
Since coming to Iceland I have become a generalist rather than a
medievalist, and have taught fraudulently all over the place:
seventeenth-century poetry, the Romantics, Afro-American literature, and
for the first (I hope not only) time this coming semester, Nabokov. I
expect 15-20 talented students, and we will read A Russian Beauty and
Other Stories, Despair,Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Pale Fire, Pnin,
and Speak, Memory. I have a good Nabokov library, having bought all the
translations as they came out in the sixties and seventies, and even a
large selection of critical works. I have also been buying everything
possible for the Icelandic National Library (which also serves as the
University Library). Being quite occupied with Old Norse matters, I have
no plans for Nabokov research, but I at least hope to make Nabokov better
known in this bookish land. I have already taught Pnin and Speak, Memory
in one course (the literature of exile), supervised one M.A. essay on him,
and will see a student tomorrow who is interested in writing a B.A. essay.
Icelandic students seem to take to him.
Robert Cook
Professor Of English
Univ. of Iceland, Rekjavik
Rekjavik <rcook@rhi.hi.is> supplies the following account of the state of
Nabokov studies in Iceland. Iceland is the 19th country represented by
subscribers to NABOKV-L and has just been joined by Korea making 20.
Happy New Year to all! S novym godom vsem!
--------------------------
Since coming to Iceland I have become a generalist rather than a
medievalist, and have taught fraudulently all over the place:
seventeenth-century poetry, the Romantics, Afro-American literature, and
for the first (I hope not only) time this coming semester, Nabokov. I
expect 15-20 talented students, and we will read A Russian Beauty and
Other Stories, Despair,Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Pale Fire, Pnin,
and Speak, Memory. I have a good Nabokov library, having bought all the
translations as they came out in the sixties and seventies, and even a
large selection of critical works. I have also been buying everything
possible for the Icelandic National Library (which also serves as the
University Library). Being quite occupied with Old Norse matters, I have
no plans for Nabokov research, but I at least hope to make Nabokov better
known in this bookish land. I have already taught Pnin and Speak, Memory
in one course (the literature of exile), supervised one M.A. essay on him,
and will see a student tomorrow who is interested in writing a B.A. essay.
Icelandic students seem to take to him.
Robert Cook
Professor Of English
Univ. of Iceland, Rekjavik