Anthony Stadlen:On the cover of the 2008
Oneworld Classics edition of the English translation of Robbe-Grillet's La
Joalousie [Jealousy] is a claim that Vladimir Nabokov said La Jalousie was "The
finest novel about love since Proust".I am familiar with Nabokov's praise of
Robbe-Grillet in Strong Opinions, but I have never noticed this particular
assertion, nor can I find it on a quick re-scan of its pages. I do not think I
would have forgotten this if I had read it.I should be most grateful if any kind
person could tell me where and when Nabokov said this, if indeed he
did.Incidentally, since in a filmed discussion, available online, he agreed with
Lionel Trilling that Lolita was about love, if he did say this about
Robbe-Grillet's book it would imply that he was saying La Jalousie was a
finer novel, or at least a finer novel about love, than Lolita. This would
be remarkable, if true.
JM: While I was perusing the
letters written by VN-E.Wilson, searching for Wilson's comments related to
"obsolete" words, I kept hoping to find in there the quotation you asked for. I
surmised that, should VN have written that Jalousie was "the
finest novel about love since Proust," he might have set this down
before he wrote "Lolita," therefore he wouldn't be diminishing his "novel
about love" in his appraisal of "Jalousie".
Unfortunately I could not locate any quote and
the reference to Robbe-Grillet comes later (January 19,1960m page 364) He wrote:
"The best French writer is Robbe-Grillet whom we met in Paris. He is being
incomprehensibly lumped together with all sorts of Butors and Sarrautes by many
French critics." I might have overlooked earlier mentions, it is easy to
get side-tracked when following the exciting exchanges bt. Bunny and
Volodya*. I'll try to follow another hunch (related to a book in French
dealing with Sartre's negative appraisal of one of Nabokov's
novels).
btw: If Steve Blackwell concurs with me, I'll be
copying down various of the VN-EW exchanges concerning metrics and poetry, for
easy reference by the List, in other future postings.
A first tidbit (page 204/05, Dec. 1,1946) when
Wilson writes about Malraux, whose inaccuracies concerning the glow of a
cigarette tip, among others, were cruelly derided by VN:
"He is surely the only first-rate
imaginative genius the French have produced since Proust. Inaccuracies, clichés
and clumsiness do not in themselves invalidate a writer. You and I, besides,
differ completely, not only about Malraux, but also about Dostoevsky, Greek
drama, Lenin, Freud, and a lot of other things - about whihch, I'm sure [we]
will never be reconciled; so that we'd better, I suppose, stick to the more
profitable discussion of Pushkin, Flaubert, Proust, Joyce, etc.... malicious
humor ...hasn't necessarily anything to do with first-rate
literature."
And... a provocation (found on page 235) from
Toynbee's review of the English edition of "Three Russian Poets" :
"Mr. Nabokov is a deft and loyal translator. He
has not the dubious advantage of being himself a poet."
Karlinski adds in his note that since Toynbee
was "also highly enthusiastic about Oliver Elton's version of Eugene
Onegin, his judgement could hardly have mattered much to
Nabokov."
* The informative comments by the
editor, Simon Karlinsky, are a treat.
In the Fall issue of "The Nabokovian," we can
read B.Boyd's thoroughly researched and admiring obituary of SK, and another of
Alfred Appel Jr.