And in my reply to Professor Couturier, I said I’m very
honored to receive encouragement from a scholar of Nabokov, but even more
pleased to hear from a former Loras professor and Dubuquer.
Professor Couturier’s note about the priests at
Loras College is interesting. I recently read a self-published memoir called The
Mad Bugler and Other Tales: a Dubuque Reflection by Dr. John A. Most, a
Loras alumnus. The Mad Bugler is very similar in tone and irreverence to
Robert Byrne’s 1970 novel Memories of a Non-Jewish Childhood.
Anyway, reflecting on his time as an undergraduate student at Loras during the
1940s, Dr. Most describes how one of the priests privately encouraged him to
read The New Yorker magazine. This must have been close to heresy,
especially since The New Yorker was famously "not edited for the
old lady in Dubuque."
Thanks again, Professor Couturier, for your comments.
Mike
Michael May
Adult Services Librarian
Carnegie-Stout Public Library
360 West 11th Street
Dubuque, IA 52001-4697, USA
Phone: 563-589-4225 ext. 2244
Fax: 563-589-4217
Email: mmay@dubuque.lib.ia.us
-------- Original Message --------
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Subject: |
Re: [NABOKV-L] ANNC: Reading Lolita in Dubuque |
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Date: |
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:45:20 +0200 |
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From: |
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To: |
Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU> |
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References: |
<C873ED803944194CA976327B1E13E35A2F9E515501@csplex.dbqpublib.local> |
Dear List,
I just mailed a response to Michael May's announcement ("Reading Lolita in
Dubuque"). My first experience of America was precisely in Dubuqe, as
instructor at Loras College; there was a kind of exchange between the Catholic
University of Angers where I was teaching then and Loras College. You may not
believe it, but they asked me to teach three courses of "Freshman
English"
plus one of "French culture". It was a great experience.
I hadn't heard of Nabokov at the time, having always studied and taught in
Catholic schools in France; it was the following year that a Sorbonne
professor (to whom I am immensely grateful) made me read "Pale Fire".
And I
bought my first copy of "Lolita" (Appel's annotated edition) at the Notre
Dame
bookstore in 1970 (where I had just been appointed as assistant professor).
Strangely, I found Dubuque, and Loras College, very liberal, as compared to
France and the University of Angers. When I was teaching at the Sorbonne in
the seventies, a senior professor forbade me to teach a course on
"Lolita"
("It might shock the girls", he said. He was a specialist of Whitman
and
taught courses on him, not bothering if that shocked the boys!).
Maurice Couturier