Subject
Dawn Powell on Nabokov
From
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. See note at end.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dawn Powell on Nabokov
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 20:32:58 -0500
From: Rodney Welch <rodney41@mindspring.com>
-----------------
I recently discovered while reading Tim Page's 1998 biography of the
brilliant New York satirist Dawn Powell that she had little use for
Vladimir Nabokov. Powell and VN both shared a close friend (or
ex-friend, in VN's case) in Edmund Wilson; the two novelists once met at
Wilson's home, and while she found him "personally charming" (according
to Page) she was "wildly irritated" (her words) by his prose. Here is
part of her letter to Wilson -- written, I notice, on July 20, 1965,
just as the great
Nabokov-Wilson celebrity deathmatch over Eugene Onegin was getting off
to a roaring start:
"The author seems motivated by a compulsion to denigrate his heroes and
thus strut his own superiority, which he may not have been able to
demonstrate in life so must construct these puppets to mortify and
humiliate ... I disliked his dowdy translations, too -- at least
Constance Garnett (or was it Isabel Hapgood?) loved the whole and didn't
want to stop the horses and sleighbells just to lecture that a blur of
fir trees shadowing the sky (vaguely) was really four half-grown
greenish-brown specimens of Max Schlings Spruce Seedlings No. 542. Who
knows what the best translation is, anyway? -- for the scientific
exactness can be way off the true feeling."
Most Nabokovians will, I suspect, roll their eyes when they read this --
although I hope we all at least chuckle at the 542 crack -- and maybe
even find it typical of the well-meaning Garnett-reading imbeciles who
lined up on Wilson's non-expert side. For what it's worth, I can't
imagine Nabokov much liking Powell's fiction, either, if he was aware of
it -- and he would have had no use for any smalltime reviewer, like me,
who recently went so far as to compare her to Jane Austen. Chalk this up
as one more example, much noted in recent weeks, of appreciating writers
who did not appreciate each other.
Rodney Welch
Columbia, SC
---------------------------
NABOKV-L thanks Rodney Welch for this gem. It is interesting. I haven't
checked VN's correspondence with Wilson re Dawn
Powell but Boyd doesn't mention her. As it happens, I recently read the
Dawn POwell "trilogy" out together by Gore Vidal some years back. As a
master of style DP leaves a lot to be desired, although her plot
contruction is excellent. The tone reminds me of British
satiric social novels of the 20s (Waugh et al), but transfered to NYC
bohemia of the 20s-40s. Curiously, what seems to be to be one of her
weakness is one that many careless readers find objectionable about VN:
lack of compassion for her characters. Can't say the parallel to Jane
Austen ever struck me before but, yeh, I can see it in a bizzare way.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dawn Powell on Nabokov
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 20:32:58 -0500
From: Rodney Welch <rodney41@mindspring.com>
-----------------
I recently discovered while reading Tim Page's 1998 biography of the
brilliant New York satirist Dawn Powell that she had little use for
Vladimir Nabokov. Powell and VN both shared a close friend (or
ex-friend, in VN's case) in Edmund Wilson; the two novelists once met at
Wilson's home, and while she found him "personally charming" (according
to Page) she was "wildly irritated" (her words) by his prose. Here is
part of her letter to Wilson -- written, I notice, on July 20, 1965,
just as the great
Nabokov-Wilson celebrity deathmatch over Eugene Onegin was getting off
to a roaring start:
"The author seems motivated by a compulsion to denigrate his heroes and
thus strut his own superiority, which he may not have been able to
demonstrate in life so must construct these puppets to mortify and
humiliate ... I disliked his dowdy translations, too -- at least
Constance Garnett (or was it Isabel Hapgood?) loved the whole and didn't
want to stop the horses and sleighbells just to lecture that a blur of
fir trees shadowing the sky (vaguely) was really four half-grown
greenish-brown specimens of Max Schlings Spruce Seedlings No. 542. Who
knows what the best translation is, anyway? -- for the scientific
exactness can be way off the true feeling."
Most Nabokovians will, I suspect, roll their eyes when they read this --
although I hope we all at least chuckle at the 542 crack -- and maybe
even find it typical of the well-meaning Garnett-reading imbeciles who
lined up on Wilson's non-expert side. For what it's worth, I can't
imagine Nabokov much liking Powell's fiction, either, if he was aware of
it -- and he would have had no use for any smalltime reviewer, like me,
who recently went so far as to compare her to Jane Austen. Chalk this up
as one more example, much noted in recent weeks, of appreciating writers
who did not appreciate each other.
Rodney Welch
Columbia, SC
---------------------------
NABOKV-L thanks Rodney Welch for this gem. It is interesting. I haven't
checked VN's correspondence with Wilson re Dawn
Powell but Boyd doesn't mention her. As it happens, I recently read the
Dawn POwell "trilogy" out together by Gore Vidal some years back. As a
master of style DP leaves a lot to be desired, although her plot
contruction is excellent. The tone reminds me of British
satiric social novels of the 20s (Waugh et al), but transfered to NYC
bohemia of the 20s-40s. Curiously, what seems to be to be one of her
weakness is one that many careless readers find objectionable about VN:
lack of compassion for her characters. Can't say the parallel to Jane
Austen ever struck me before but, yeh, I can see it in a bizzare way.