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Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Borges
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EDNOTE. The redoubtable Mary Belliino provides the documented answers re VN
& BB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (42
lines) ------------------
> Nabokov had this to say on Borges in 1969:
>
> "At first, Vera and I were delighted by reading him. We felt
> we were on a portico, but we have learned that there was no house."
>
> Source is the TIME magazine article of May 23, 1969, p. 83.
> The "interview" that appears in SO (pp. 120-30 of the
> Vintage edition) was never published in full in TIME (that I
> can make out) but rather consists of Nabokov's written
> responses to questions that were telexed to him before the
> interview by two TIME reporters. Perhaps not surprisingly,
> there is no mention of Borges in this SO "interview," and VN
> pointedly avoids answering a direct question about Norman
> Mailer--whereas in the TIME article he cheerfully admits
> that he "detests everything in Amreican life that [Mailer]
> stands for" and as a bonus throws in a devastating appraisal
> of Philip Roth.
>
> As Sweeney suggests, the SO mentions of Borges are by no
> means as damning as the TIME statement, but I would argue
> that if read sequentially they do indicate a "waning" of
> admiration. In particular the statement on 184 seems very
> ambiguous, and that on 289-90 can only be described as dismissive.
>
> Can anyone with a closer knowledge of VN's biography shed
> any light on the relationship between the SO "interview" and
> the quotes in the TIME article, and on VN's decision to let
> the TIME quotes stand? Surely he must have approved the TIME galleys.
>
> Mary
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Susan Elizabeth Sweeney" <ssweeney@holycross.edu>
> > To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 7:58 AM
> > Subject: Nabokov and Borges
> >
> > > Hello to Brian and others,
> > >
> > > I am not so sure that Nabokov's admiration of Borges waned in any way.
While Nabokov vociferously resisted any intimations that he had been
influenced by anyone, including Borges (one of those people whose names
"always begin with a B" to whom he was compared), his comments on Borges's
"miniature labyrinths" in SO are consistently approving. The "good-natured
> anagram" in ADA is, at heart, a considerable compliment,
> since Osberg becomes the Antiterran author of LOLITA.
& BB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (42
lines) ------------------
> Nabokov had this to say on Borges in 1969:
>
> "At first, Vera and I were delighted by reading him. We felt
> we were on a portico, but we have learned that there was no house."
>
> Source is the TIME magazine article of May 23, 1969, p. 83.
> The "interview" that appears in SO (pp. 120-30 of the
> Vintage edition) was never published in full in TIME (that I
> can make out) but rather consists of Nabokov's written
> responses to questions that were telexed to him before the
> interview by two TIME reporters. Perhaps not surprisingly,
> there is no mention of Borges in this SO "interview," and VN
> pointedly avoids answering a direct question about Norman
> Mailer--whereas in the TIME article he cheerfully admits
> that he "detests everything in Amreican life that [Mailer]
> stands for" and as a bonus throws in a devastating appraisal
> of Philip Roth.
>
> As Sweeney suggests, the SO mentions of Borges are by no
> means as damning as the TIME statement, but I would argue
> that if read sequentially they do indicate a "waning" of
> admiration. In particular the statement on 184 seems very
> ambiguous, and that on 289-90 can only be described as dismissive.
>
> Can anyone with a closer knowledge of VN's biography shed
> any light on the relationship between the SO "interview" and
> the quotes in the TIME article, and on VN's decision to let
> the TIME quotes stand? Surely he must have approved the TIME galleys.
>
> Mary
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Susan Elizabeth Sweeney" <ssweeney@holycross.edu>
> > To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 7:58 AM
> > Subject: Nabokov and Borges
> >
> > > Hello to Brian and others,
> > >
> > > I am not so sure that Nabokov's admiration of Borges waned in any way.
While Nabokov vociferously resisted any intimations that he had been
influenced by anyone, including Borges (one of those people whose names
"always begin with a B" to whom he was compared), his comments on Borges's
"miniature labyrinths" in SO are consistently approving. The "good-natured
> anagram" in ADA is, at heart, a considerable compliment,
> since Osberg becomes the Antiterran author of LOLITA.