From Charles Harrison Wallace

Don Johnson's mention of the article by J.Morris on the topic of PF as poetry, which I have just read, is extraordinarily welcome (to me). I found it more, much more, than excellent.

In an ideal world, before submitting our comments, we should read everything written by VN, as well as everything written about him. For myself, like the character in Shaw's Back to Methusaleh, I would die of discouragement before I began, and cannot offer any further comment.

I noticed that in my question about what VN really believed about literal translation I misdated his second strong opinion to 1990. It must have been written, published, in 1964, ie about ten or so years after his first opinion.

I also noticed that in an earlier posting I mysteriously and quite unconsciously portmanteaued "Helen Vendler" into "Velen". Inexplicable. More Carrollian than Nabokovian.

Re the quality of Pale Fire, the poem, again. In an effort to get a better fix on VN as a poet writing in English, I have just read through the contents of his "Poems", 1959, which arrived here in Shetland from Alabama this morning. If I were reviewing it for some literary rag, I would call it as interesting and by no means no worse than any other slim volume of occasional verse. "Critic", of course, was Beckett's ultimate term of abuse.

Two instances of life imitating art. I have already mentioned the sad case of Filippa Rolf, the mildly homosexual semi-aristocrat living in America as an exile from a northern land, who aspired to poetry, and perhaps hoped to succeed in English, which was not her native tongue. I have recently heard from someone who knew her much better than I did, in America from 1965 onwards that she "killed herself. She was always a melancholic, and her slow decline began early." Because of the Swedish allusions in PF I couldn't help assuming that, in part at least, art was imitating life. but the dates don't fit, and it now seems as if life imitated art. Good prose writing in a non-native tongue is exceptionally difficult. I would not attempt to judge the performances of Beckett and Wilde, but Conrad still strikes me as un-English, although Munthe and Blixen are excellent. I think it's easier for Scandinavians to make the transition. VN is, naturally, astonishing. But I believe him to have been virtually bi-lingual at an early age. When it comes to poetry, however, even bi-lingualism is insufficient, since one language will still predominate, and force the subordinate language aside. Poetry, imho, arises from a most intimate and exclusive love-affair with the language itself. I wouldn't like to comment on the Latin verse of, say, Marvel or Milton, although well-educated Englishmen of that era might be thought of as virtually bi-lingual.

The second instance also derives from a personal connection. A university contemporary of mine went to live in America in about 1961. This is a man who, to lift a phrase from PF, has a mind which is a library, not a debating hall. In New York (not New Wye) he then fell in with a most dashing and romantic exile from darkest Europe, and found himself ghosting this fantasist's literary aspirations into literate English, an exercise which engaged his utmost concentration, and for which he was paid, though sworn to secrecy on his identity and employment. The book duly went on to win the National Book Award, and was ecstatically praised for its Nabokovian mastery of the English language. I received an excited letter from my contemporary at the time, revelling in his anonymous and totally unrecognized achievement. Some years later it was revealed that the dashing exile had not written his masterpieces himself, and, whether the direct cause was this exposure or not, he committed suicide.

I can't help reflecting on these reflections.

End for today.

Charles Harrison Wallace

In a message dated 16/11/2006 21:27:23 GMT Standard Time, chtodel@COX.NET writes:

From: Don Johnson:

Our beloved editors (who, I'm sure, got more than they bargained for when they magnanimously volunteered to assume their posts) recently urged contributors to check the extensive NABOKV-L Archives BEFORE submitting their comments (where appropriate). I would add that checking ZEMBLA as well may be profitable. Quite by chance, I ran across there the item below which on its second page gives an excellent discussion of the virtues of the "Pale Fire" and VN's attitude toward it.

Genius and Plausibility: Suspension of Disbelief in Pale Fire
by J. Morris