-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Writer/artist as stranger]]
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 17:31:14 -0500 (EST)
From: STADLEN@aol.com
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU


In a message dated 28/01/2006 21:27:58 GMT Standard Time, nabokv-l@UTK.EDU writes:

“And the more brilliant, the more unusual the man, the nearer he is to the stake. Stranger always rhymes with danger. The meek prophet, the enchanter in his cave, the indignant artist, the nonconforming little schoolboy, all share in the same sacred danger. And this being so, let us bless them, let us bless the freak; for in the natural evolution of things, the ape would perhaps never have become man had not a freak appeared in the family . . . “ (from Lectures on Literature, p. 372)



Chapter 19 of Leviticus, the heart of the Torah, contains "Love your neighbour as yourself" but it also contains "Love the stranger as yourself". The commandment to love the stranger is repeated more than any other in the Torah: 36 times.

Please forgive if this seems a rather Kinbotian reflection.

Speaking of which, I have just heard BBC Radio 3's "Pale Fire". I thought it was brilliant in what I had supposed to be the almost impossible circumstances.

Anthony Stadlen


--
Stephen H. Blackwell
Associate Professor of Russian
Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
701 McClung Tower
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-0470

Phone: 865-974-4536
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