Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 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 <20010507152506.DGJM67905.mtapop4.verizon.net@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> for ; Mon, 7 May 2001 10:25:06 -0500 Received: from ucsbuxa (listserv.ucsb.edu [128.111.125.159]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA18615 for ; Mon, 7 May 2001 08:25:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.montclair.edu (enterprise1.montclair.edu [130.68.1.251]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA18611 for ; Mon, 7 May 2001 08:25:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.montclair.edu ([130.68.60.179]) by mail.montclair.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id AAA2DAF for ; Mon, 7 May 2001 11:24:53 -0400 Message-ID: <3AF6BE33.FA1A0AF6@mail.montclair.edu> Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 11:24:35 -0400 From: "Jay Livingston" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum Subject: Philip Fisher on VN Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Philip Fisher, Harvard professor and winner of the 2000 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism for =93Hard Facts,=94 interviewed in =93Colloquy,=94 the alumni magazine of the Harvard grad school. The entire interview is, allegedly, available at http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/colloquy. Fisher: People were looking to Tolstoy or George Eliot to talk about everything of substantial moral weight because they were themselves some distance from religious sources. There was going to be a cooperative spiritual relationship between philosophers and novelists and so on about existential issues. People hadn=92t liberated themselves from looking to one master source of wisdom. Now, we=92re a more complexly secularized culture. One of the things that separates today=92s novel from that of the 19th century is the roles its trying to fill. Q: Which accounts for the slimmer books of today. Fisher: Or the element of play. It=92s one of the things most incompatible with that [Victorian] high seriousness. For me, one of the absolutely great careers stretching into the second half of the 20th century is Nabokov=92s, which is based on toying with language and a remarkably intellectual relation to moral life. Nabokov=92s central emphasis on cruelty as a moral vice demonstrates that you don=92t have to sacrifice the moral domain when you engage in lightness and gamelike behavior. . . . . Q: You have written that no work can become a classic in its own time. That said, would you hazard any recent contenders? Fisher: I think I wouldn=92t. The last thing you can feel confident about is =93Lolita,=94 an American classic and a classic of language and observation. . . . . The embarrassment of premature classic status is clear when you consider =93Dr. Zhivago.=94 When it was published it was immediately taught, and every course went from Homer to Tolstoy to =93Dr. Zhivago.=94 The same was true in recent years of =93One Hundred Years of Solitude.=94 . . . . .At this point there=92s a temptation to think it=92s going to be a big book because at the beginning of the 20th century we had =93Ulysses.=94 The instance of =93Lolita,=94 a sly and tiny classic, i= s a sign that it doesn=92t happen where you think it will.