Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0012698, Fri, 5 May 2006 14:14:04 -0400

Subject
Re: Nabokov and McCarthyism (and cousin Nicolas Nabokov)
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Date
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Dear Beth, Dmitri, List...

Since I had no access to information concerning events such as the one Susan
Elizabeth Sweeney helped to organize ( I quote: 'With regard to reading
Nabokov's American oeuvre in the context of the
Cold War, the Nabokov Society sponsored a fascinating session on "Crime
and the Cold War in Nabokov's Fiction" ... three years ago at the annual
convention of the
American Literature Association.'), I'm now glad that this issue has come up
in our List, since many Nabokov admirers like me may have ignored this
important contextualization of VN´s work.
We know that professing oneself "apolitical" is still to profess a
political belief and we don't always have to fully agree with Nabokov's
interpretations, or anyone else's, to allow oneselves to think and express
our own: that's what democracy is all about. It is important to be cognizant
of an ideological mainstream and its various bifurcations to be able to
understand a satire or to appreciate the role of characters such as Kinbote
and Shade, Krug or Lucette.
I thank our EDs for the present opportunity for on-line debates.
Jansy Mello

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