Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0006455, Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:47:19 -0800

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[Fwd: Nabokoviana]
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Nabokoviana
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 15:00:49 -0700
From: Earl Sampson <esamson3@attbi.com>
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From: Earl Sampson <esampson@post.harvard.edu>

The Dictionary.com Word of the Day for today is "ratiocination," with
the following passage as one of the examples of its use.

There is no question that Joyce and Nabokov. . .
brilliantly explored and expanded the limits of language
and the structure of novels, yet both were led irresistibly
and obsessively to cap their careers with those cold and
lifeless masterpieces, "Finnegans Wake" and "Ada," more to
be deciphered than read by a handful of scholars whose
pleasure is strictly ratiocination.
--"How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love 'Barry
Lyndon,' " [3]New York Times, January 11, 1976

--
Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating
truth.
≈ Laura Riding