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Fw: Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Borges
From
Date
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Corinne Scheiner" <cscheiner@ColoradoCollege.edu>
your approval (80 lines) ------------------
> Another Borges comment to add to the mix:
>
> In a series of written questions sent on June 26, 1969, Allene Talmney,
> Associate Editor of Vogue, remarked to Nabokov that he was "often
> superficially linked to a handful of international writers like Beckett
> and Borges," and asked if he felt "any affinity with them or with [his]
> other contemporaries," Nabokov responded, "Oh, I am well aware of those
> commentators: slow minds, hasty typewriters! They would do better to link
> Beckett with Maeterlinck and Borges with Anatole France. It might prove
> more instructive than gossiping about a stranger." The "interview"
> appeared in the 1969 Christmas issue of Vogue and is reproduced in SO
> (153-158).
>
> Corinne
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU]On
> Behalf Of D. Barton Johnson
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:47 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Borges
>
>
> 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.
From: "Corinne Scheiner" <cscheiner@ColoradoCollege.edu>
your approval (80 lines) ------------------
> Another Borges comment to add to the mix:
>
> In a series of written questions sent on June 26, 1969, Allene Talmney,
> Associate Editor of Vogue, remarked to Nabokov that he was "often
> superficially linked to a handful of international writers like Beckett
> and Borges," and asked if he felt "any affinity with them or with [his]
> other contemporaries," Nabokov responded, "Oh, I am well aware of those
> commentators: slow minds, hasty typewriters! They would do better to link
> Beckett with Maeterlinck and Borges with Anatole France. It might prove
> more instructive than gossiping about a stranger." The "interview"
> appeared in the 1969 Christmas issue of Vogue and is reproduced in SO
> (153-158).
>
> Corinne
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU]On
> Behalf Of D. Barton Johnson
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:47 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Borges
>
>
> 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.