Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010298, Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:44:51 -0700

Subject
Fwd: Nab Listserv Question
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from kentapscott@hotmail.com -----
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:28:06 -0400
From: ken tapscott <kentapscott@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: ken tapscott <kentapscott@hotmail.com>
Subject: Nab Listserv Question
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu

I am curious about something, and
so have emailed this directly to the moderator, hoping he or she will put it
up on the list for me. The question can only be answered, probably, by
Dmitri Nabokov or Brian Boyd. Here it is:

Why oh why doesn't the Nabokov estate reissue _Three Russian Poets_? The
old, withered up books from the original edition are for sale here and there
at about $300 apiece. I saw an old, written in, _photocopy_ of one for sale
on Ebay a year ago for about $200! This seems insane to me - Nabokov did
this book, he's one of the greatest writers of the XXTh century and yet it
has been unavailable for almost _50_ years. (Imagine one of James Joyce's
books remaining unavailable for half a century...). I can well imagine the
reason for this: it's because the translations must be rhymed, and N.
probably turned on the book once his principles re translation were set
forth so adamantly in _EO_; but come on, there is absolutely no reason why
there shouldn't at least be a scholarly edition of this book for sale. I
have had some quite Pninian adventures just attempting to get to look at a
copy of this book in a university library (and yes, I have every intention
of photocopying it when I get my hands on one of them). So why not just
reissue it? Surely someone out there would be delighted to publish it.


A good corollary to my question above would be: why is it that the Spoken
Arts LP of N. reading from _Lolita_ and his own poetry has been unavailable
since the 1960's? This is simply _preposterous_.

-KT

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