Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ([128.111.125.82]) by mtapop4.verizon.net (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with ESMTP id <20001023205437.TRLM428988.mtapop4.verizon.net@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 15:54:37 -0500 Received: from ucsbuxa (ucsbuxa [128.111.125.82]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA22884 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:54:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jefferson.corp.straussandasher.com (jefferson.corp.straussandasher.com [209.68.242.66]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA22880 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:54:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: by jefferson.corp.straussandasher.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:50:15 -0700 Message-ID: From: Mark Bennett To: "'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'" Subject: RE: Nabokoviana Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:50:13 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="x-user-defined" X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 It's interesting that Boyd lost his heart to Nabokov; from what I recall, there is little evidence of VN's influence in Boyd's novels. Kingsley Amis and Evelyn Waugh, certainly, but VN? In any event one of the funniest novels of the last 25 years is Boyd's "A Good Man In Africa" which is absolutely hilarious, comparable to "Lucky Jim" and "Time for a Tiger." -----Original Message----- From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@GTE.net] Sent: Monday, October 23, 2000 1:36 PM To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU Subject: Nabokoviana 1.The 15 Oct 2000 NYTBR offers Brit. novelist, William Boyd's review (p. 9) of _Loving Graham Greene_ by Gloria Emerson. Boyd open: "It's very easy to develop a healthy obsession with a favorite author -- I have a couple of lengthy trysts going on with Cyril Connolly and William Gerhardie -- though my heart belongs to Nabokov -- and bexcause the relationship between writer and reader is so unusually intimate ..., it's also very easy for that obsession to become a little unhinged." Passing thought.William Gerhardie, born of an English family living in Petersburg, was a co-eval of VN. Leaving Russia round the time of the revolution he became a novelist and in his later years something of a cult figure. His memoir is called _Memoirs of a Polyglot_. His archives are at Cambridge (UK) and in the U.S. and might prove interesting as a small sidelight on VN. 2. Frederic Raphael (ho wrote the hostile review of ten new Atlas Bio of Saul Bellow) was, I see, the script writer for Kubrick's last film, _Eyes Wide Shut_ that has been playing on HBO lately.