Being a Dane, and Hans Christian Andersens 200 year aniversary coming up next year; I had hoped Nabokov-land would be Andersen-proof, but alas...
 
First of all, I don't think VN considered Hans Christian Andersen's to be of any artistic importance (isn't there something, somewhere, a sentence reffering to the "bedside Dane" in Pnin?).
 
Second: Søren Kierkegaard did not think highly of Andersen.
 
Third. What fairy tale of Andersen? And what book by Kierkegaard. Not to mention: what, where is the link between Kirkegaard and VN? 
 
Anyway, VN probably read "The Shadow".
The English Andersen translations have been the subject of a recent Danish doctoral thesis, which found major flaws in almost all of them; and, to a Dane, that's the major charm of Andersen, his language ( - it's a treat to read him for your children). Likewise, Kierkegaard had a fantastic sense of irony completely overlooked by bores like Sartre. 
 
Best
Ole Nyegaard
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:02 PM
Subject: Fw: Query: Nabokov and Kierkegaard

EDNOTE. I don't recall any overt links (but 'hey'...) There certainly are
"negative" echoes via Sarte and possibly through the Hippius group in inter-war
Paris. For more on the Sarte connection see my article "The Nabokov-Sartr
Controversy" in Issue #1 of NABOKOV STUDIES and also my article "'Terror':
Pretexts & Posttexts" in the Barabtarlo-Nicol collection on VN's short stories.
The latter may give you somne ideas.
-------------------------------------------------------------

----- Forwarded message from willtato@pacbell.net -----
    Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:03:02 -0800
    From: willtato <willtato@pacbell.net>


VN disliked Existentialism, and all  "-ism's" , to put it mildly. Here is one
reference that comes to mind. It is the first paragraph of a review he wrote on
JP Sartre's "La Nausee" entitled "Sartre's First Try" , written in1949

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAUSEA. By Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Lloyd Alexander.
Sartre's name, I understand, is associated with a fashionable brand of cafe
philosophy and since for every so-called "existentialist" one finds quite a few
"suctorialists" (if I may coin a polite term), this made-in- England translation
of Sartre's first novel, "La Nausée" (published in Paris in 1938) should enjoy
some success.



The complete review is on the New York Times' "Life and Times of Nabokov" web
site, at:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-r-sartre.html


have fun, I did

will




----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:27 AM
Subject: Query: Nabokov and Kierkegaard


> hello all,
>
> I was wondering whether anyone knew of articles or books dealing
> with Nabokov's relation to philosophy generally, to existentialism, and
> in particular to Soren Kierkegaard. Both Kierkegaard and Nabokov
> make use of Anderson's fairy tales, and I was hoping to draw some
> parallels between them using Anderson as a link. However, I'm not
> sure whether Nabokov would have had any contact with Kierkegaard's
> works, or what he thought of Kierkegaard's brand of philosophy.
> Thanks very much for any help on this subject.
>
> Ben
>
> (my email is ben.gallagher@utoronto.ca)
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----

----- End forwarded message -----

VN disliked Existentialism, and all  "-ism's" , to put it mildly. Here is one reference that comes to mind. It is the first paragraph of a review he wrote on JP Sartre's "La Nausee" entitled "Sartre's First Try" , written in1949
NAUSEA. By Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Lloyd Alexander.

Sartre's name, I understand, is associated with a fashionable brand of cafe philosophy and since for every so-called "existentialist" one finds quite a few "suctorialists" (if I may coin a polite term), this made-in- England translation of Sartre's first novel, "La Nausée" (published in Paris in 1938) should enjoy some success.

 

The complete review is on the New York Times' "Life and Times of Nabokov" web site, at:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-r-sartre.html 
 
 
have fun, I did
 
will
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:27 AM
Subject: Query: Nabokov and Kierkegaard

> hello all,
>
> I was wondering whether anyone knew of articles or books dealing
> with Nabokov's relation to philosophy generally, to existentialism, and
> in particular to Soren Kierkegaard. Both Kierkegaard and Nabokov
> make use of Anderson's fairy tales, and I was hoping to draw some
> parallels between them using Anderson as a link. However, I'm not
> sure whether Nabokov would have had any contact with Kierkegaard's
> works, or what he thought of Kierkegaard's brand of philosophy.
> Thanks very much for any help on this subject.
>
> Ben
>
> (my email is ben.gallagher@utoronto.ca)
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----