Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0007033, Wed, 6 Nov 2002 21:25:13 -0800

Subject
Fw: p.s. to Thomas N
Date
Body
p.s. to Thomas N
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 10:44 PM
Subject: p.s. to Thomas N


p.s. I did intend to answer your remarks likening literary pursuits to totalitarian states:

The shift of emphasis from text to texture is an introduction to an
integralidea/theme of the novel: the mode of searching for absolute truth in text
is not only simple-minded and futile but can also be dangerous. When reading
with the mindset that an answer to the problems of the novel HAS to be
found, we do not realize that, in doing so, one employs the same manner of
thinking used by those who go on to make the most blatant and dangerous
truth claims about the meanings of text: Christian fundamentalists,
extremist Muslims, Lenin, Hitler, et cetera...

I don't admit the comparison.

Was Toscaninni "dangerous" to anybody? He was a dictator, perhaps the last of the great dictator/conductors. Shall we try him in the Hague? Cocteau in his film Orphee can be seen in a "cameo" playing God. Should we have locked him up? Attempting to solve a literary puzzle hardly makes one a religious or political fanatic., and the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) has never been a democratic state.

Attachment