Subject
Re: RJ: A FORGOTTEN POET (fwd)
Date
Body
From: VESTERMAN@zodiac.rutgers.edu
I disagree with Roy Johnson's assessment of "A Forgotten Poet"
as "posibly the weakest of all Nabokov's short stories" and would
respectfully take issue with the aesthetic principles he announces
as the bases of his judgment. I compliment him on announcing them
and thus distinguishing himself from the recent players in the
best and worst game. Johnson objects:
A) that the short story is really only a "tale"
B) that its realistic pretence is improbable
C) that "it appears to have no special purpose
or point."
To take the last first: Roy Johnson himself mentions two
"points" to the story: a plea for maintaining cultural consciousness
and an amused view of the differences "between public and
private perceptions of the artist and the person himself."
While I would agree that these are not very special, surely
Johnson's criticism dramatizes their validity insofar as
the story makes fun of all of us who like Roy Johnson and
myself set up shop to give awards (and their opposites)
to artists like VN in forums like the present one. As
to the "plea" for conservation, VN doesn't seem elsewhere
the pleading sort and the absence of sentimentality about Perov
is mirrored again and again in VN's fiction concerning the
pretentions of artists to a special status as human beings.
If we read the end as wistful (P's works are as unknown in
the USSR as VN's) that might make the story a plea for
the reader's pity, but I don't hear it that way. P is
a "forgotten poet" to the public but goes about his life
with supreme indifference to that public's views unless
they are conveniently useful in making a living and like
VN is supremely indifferent whether the liberals see
him as a progressive or the communists see him as a
reactionary. Cultural consciousness can mean juries
but it can also mean the spine thrill of a reader's
connection with an author and though even this will
fade it exemplifies the poignancy and glory of art
that depicts the struggle of eternal values in the
muddled world of time.
B)Sam Johnson has refuted the "suspension of
disbelief" objection to my satisfaction. No reader
of tale, anecdote or story ever thought Perov real
in the first place and so could not be confused by
VN's reality. If such a reader existed, "surely
he who could believe this could believe more"
and think VN is telling a true story. Roy Johnson's
claim that we 'can check the record' (would he
really ever do so?) would continue to be a grim
joke had Soviet history continued to supply the
record.
A) What's wrong with tales? Sean O'Faolain
says they are not up to date enough to satisfy
us. I am satisfied. SF may have needed to
propogandize for what Wyndham Lewis called
"the demon of progress in the arts" to get
his own stuff accepted, but so what. Even
if the story were only an oldfashioned
tale (which I deny), reading it as written
by the supersophisticated Nabokov would be
as interesting as reading the Quixote by Borges'
Pierre Menard and full of thrills and twists.
I like "A Forgotten Poet" and it reminds me
why I will never forget VN though I never had the
experience of knowing him personally. I like to
think that experience would not have affected
my aesthetics or his.
William Vesterman
I disagree with Roy Johnson's assessment of "A Forgotten Poet"
as "posibly the weakest of all Nabokov's short stories" and would
respectfully take issue with the aesthetic principles he announces
as the bases of his judgment. I compliment him on announcing them
and thus distinguishing himself from the recent players in the
best and worst game. Johnson objects:
A) that the short story is really only a "tale"
B) that its realistic pretence is improbable
C) that "it appears to have no special purpose
or point."
To take the last first: Roy Johnson himself mentions two
"points" to the story: a plea for maintaining cultural consciousness
and an amused view of the differences "between public and
private perceptions of the artist and the person himself."
While I would agree that these are not very special, surely
Johnson's criticism dramatizes their validity insofar as
the story makes fun of all of us who like Roy Johnson and
myself set up shop to give awards (and their opposites)
to artists like VN in forums like the present one. As
to the "plea" for conservation, VN doesn't seem elsewhere
the pleading sort and the absence of sentimentality about Perov
is mirrored again and again in VN's fiction concerning the
pretentions of artists to a special status as human beings.
If we read the end as wistful (P's works are as unknown in
the USSR as VN's) that might make the story a plea for
the reader's pity, but I don't hear it that way. P is
a "forgotten poet" to the public but goes about his life
with supreme indifference to that public's views unless
they are conveniently useful in making a living and like
VN is supremely indifferent whether the liberals see
him as a progressive or the communists see him as a
reactionary. Cultural consciousness can mean juries
but it can also mean the spine thrill of a reader's
connection with an author and though even this will
fade it exemplifies the poignancy and glory of art
that depicts the struggle of eternal values in the
muddled world of time.
B)Sam Johnson has refuted the "suspension of
disbelief" objection to my satisfaction. No reader
of tale, anecdote or story ever thought Perov real
in the first place and so could not be confused by
VN's reality. If such a reader existed, "surely
he who could believe this could believe more"
and think VN is telling a true story. Roy Johnson's
claim that we 'can check the record' (would he
really ever do so?) would continue to be a grim
joke had Soviet history continued to supply the
record.
A) What's wrong with tales? Sean O'Faolain
says they are not up to date enough to satisfy
us. I am satisfied. SF may have needed to
propogandize for what Wyndham Lewis called
"the demon of progress in the arts" to get
his own stuff accepted, but so what. Even
if the story were only an oldfashioned
tale (which I deny), reading it as written
by the supersophisticated Nabokov would be
as interesting as reading the Quixote by Borges'
Pierre Menard and full of thrills and twists.
I like "A Forgotten Poet" and it reminds me
why I will never forget VN though I never had the
experience of knowing him personally. I like to
think that experience would not have affected
my aesthetics or his.
William Vesterman