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Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 7:41 AM
Subject: NABOKOV-L Boyd:Machado and Nabokov
B Boyd: To mark the 110th year since VN's birth I
will be giving a lecture tomorrow, at the Brazilian Academy of Letters
in Rio de Janeiro, on Nabokov and Machado.Since I know no Portuguese,
since I arrived in Rio (Machado never ventured further than 75 miles
from the city) less than a day ago, since Machado was the founding
president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (and was re-elected every
year until his death), since the BAL building is known as the Casa de
Machado, and since I'm not sure I can even pronounce his name, let
alone that of some of his characters, I am mildly petrified (I realize
mild petrification is a rare condition).But should you wish to see a
nervous Boyd on Nabokov and Machado, you can watch live on the Internet
tomorrow (Thursday 17) at 16:30, US Eastern Standard Time, at
http://www.academia.org.br.
JM: B.Boyd's delivery at the BAL in Rio was enthusiastically
received by presiding poet and translator, Ivan Correa, and by the
audience.
After personally
congratulating B.Boyd on his enormous achievement (he must have read
almost every short-story and novel by Machado, before setting out to
compare their relevant points of contact with Nabokov's own, an
awe-inspiring work...) he told me that he'd spent the last six months
busy with Machado. Nevertheless this was not his first experience: he
had planned to dedicate himself to John Barth ("The Floating
Opera",aso), known to have been influenced by this Brazilian - so, he'd
collected various novels by Machado before he gave up his project and,
instead of Barth,chose Nabokov.
For me, that was one
more happy surprise ..For those who missed the event live on the internet,
photographs are no consolation, but here they are... Brian's
text shall probably be soon available in print, at least in Portuguese,
by the BAL (its older original building can be also seen in the
photo-montage).