Subject
Re: surrender and exile...
From
Date
Body
Hi
He means he will never surrender his memories. They are all safe in his
head, where Stalin and the rest of the superhuman crew can’t get at
them.
There is a letter somewhere about how he wished he had immortalized
every blade of Vyra grass. He said he had the happiest childhood
imaginable. We all live via memory, but Nabokov especially.
All the best
don
>>> Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US> 9/24/2011 11:40 AM >>>
In one of the latest video presentations in which Vladimir Nabokov is
being interviewed he mumbles, with a lowered head: "I'll not surrender."
I found a printed interview for BBC, in 1962, (SO,Vintage, p.9/10)
where VN replies to "Would you ever go back to Russia?" saying that he
"will never go back, for the simple reason that all the Russia I need is
always with me: literature, language, and my own Russian childhood. I
will never return. I will never surrender..." VN gives us to
understand that he cannot become an exile since he carries the artist's
passport and that his native country is a state of mind. In this
context, what does it mean "I'll not surrender"?
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/