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[Fwd: Re: Amis. Nabokov, Bellow]
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Amis. Nabokov, Bellow
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 15:35:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Ellen Pifer <epifer@odin.english.udel.edu>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (74 lines) ------------------
Having written books on both Nabokov and Bellow, I guess I'm living proof
that it's possible to admire both writers. Each, in my view, realizes or
fulfills in his work different (polar) aspects of the myriad creative
possibilities open to a novelist in the 20th C. Bellow, for example,
treats cultural and historical issues that are matters of sheer
indifference to VN (but not to me). And vice-versa. I have, however,
written a lot more about VN (to whom I keep returning) than about Bellow
and would rank VN higher in the pantheon. But plenty of readers/critics
I respect would not agree.
Frankly, I don't see why admiration for an author means that one
must adopt all his/her attitudes and beliefs. I understand why VN disliked
Faulkner, James, and Dostoevsky; but that's no reason for me to change my
mind about their work. And it doesn't!
Ellen Pifer
On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [Fwd: Re: Amis. Nabokov, Bellow]
> Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 12:35:19 +1300
> From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)"
>
>
> Not an anagram and not the Guinevere (but good guess, Don!) but this at
> 343.11: "The Puffer by Mr Dukes" (Herzog being German for "duke"; the
> puffer repeats the SO pun and its criticism of critical "puffery").
>
> Reading "Experience" I was amused to find that MA rated VN his novelist
> of
> the century, yet completely undermined that evaluation by saying if he
> were asked in other circumstances he could name SB his novelist of the
> century. Yet every time he quotes VN, as he does often, the quality of
> the prose lifts from the MA average; every time he quotes Bellow, the
> quality drops.
>
> Though I like VN fail to see why SB has his reputation, it should be
> noted
> that others have more accommodating tastes: Ellen Pifer has written
> highly
> acclaimed books on each of these authors.
>
> Brian Boyd
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 2/10/2002 7:16 AM
> Subject: [Fwd: Re: Amis. Nabokov, Bellow]
>
> EDITOR's NOTE. Also, in ADA Bellow's HERZOG is alluded to by an
> unflattering anagram that I don't recall. In the library of an ocean
> liner, I think.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Amis. Nabokov, Bellow
> Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 14:14:06 -0800 (PST)
> From: Nicholas Richards
>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (22 lines)
> ------------------
>
> I think if you look at Experience by Martin Amis it
>
> has some details there. Also I seem to recall in
>
> Boyd's biography that both VN & Vera Nabokov had only
>
> negative things to say about Herzog by Saul Bellow.
>