Thank you, Alexey, for the references to Wells in VN's works. If VN
really did think so highly of Wells, why did he not choose him for his
essays on English novels?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 01:41:31 +0300
From: skylark05@MAIL.RU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Carlyle
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Frances,
Thanks for your correction. You ask whether VN
really thought The Invisible Man to be one of the greatest novels in
English literature. I think he did. He was a great admirer of Wells'
novels and listed as many as five of them among his favorite books: The
Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Country of the Blind, The War of
the Worlds and The First Men on the Moon (Strong Opinions, p. 175). In
LATH there are allusions to Passionate Friends and The Island of Dr
Moreau. What VN thought of Wells' Russia in The Shadows* (in which the
author famously calls Lenin "The Dreamer in the Kremlin"), written
after HGW's visit to Petrograd and Moscow of the War Communism
years, is a different question. Btw., here you can read an article by
Martin Gardner on Wells' book: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/h-g-wells-in-russia/.
*Do the Shadows in Pale Fire have anything to
do with the title of Wells' book, I wonder?