Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0009078, Thu, 1 Jan 2004 10:42:31 -0800

Subject
Fw: early Nabokov stories/Wingstroke
Date
Body
EDNOTE. SEE COMMENT at end.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Howell" <pakmshlter@yahoo.com>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
.
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (33
lines) ------------------
> Hi
>
> This is my first post and I would like to say hello
> and Happy New Year. I have no idea of the amount of
> discussion on this list or what the latest posts are,
> but I found it via Zembla and Waxwing. I recently
> started my own group at Yahoo (Viviandarkbloom)
> because I was so despairing of finding a discussion
> list. Then I discovered this list.
>
> Anyway, I haven't read all of N's work so I am a bit
> of a novice at discussing everything in detail but I'd
> like to kick off by mentioning one particularly
> fascinating story. I'm working my way through N's
> early stories and I am quite amazed by what I can only
> describe as a kind of prototypical magical realism in
> them which I've never seen commented on anywhere.
> This is particularly so in 'Wingstroke', where an
> angel appears in the narrator's hotel room. Anyone
> read this delightful story?
>
> Brian
>
> =====
> http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
> http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
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EDNOTE. "Wingstroke" was one of the four early stories (w/ "Revenge,"
"Potato Elf," & "La Veneziana" that contribute to the aborted "English"
channel in VN's early post-Cambridge years when he was switching from poetry
to prose. (The other channel, the Russian one, had Russian emigre
settings.) The English stories, in their preoccupation with the
"otherworldly," were written under the influence of Walter de la Mare, who
was very popular at the time. I discuss these stories in "Vladimir Nabokov
and Walter de la Mare" in Jane Grayson's conference proceedings volume
NABOKOV's WORLD (Palgrave 2002).

I join Brian in asking for comment on and discussion of "Wingstroke."