Subject
Nab Vocab
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:20:11 +0200
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Nabokov mentions (fwd)
From: hassnaebouazza <H.Bouazza@stud.let.ruu.nl>
At 02:52 PM 6/11/97 -0700, you wrote:
>From: Earl Sampson <esampson@cu.campus.mci.net>
>
>
>The name Nabokov appears twice in the Daedalus Books Late Spring 1997
>catalog: The first sentence of the blurb for THE LOGODAEDALIAN'S
>DICTIONARY OF INTERESTING AND UNUSUAL WORDS, by George Stone Saussy III,
>reads "What do such weird and wonderful words as _oology_ and _photic_
>(used bu Nabokov and Beckett, Anthony Burgess and John Fowles) actually
>mean?" (Does anyone know where, or if, these two words occur in
>Nabokov?)
>And from the description of HOMO POETICUS: ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS, by Danilo
>Kis: "Here is Kis on nationalism as kitsch and collective paranoia,...on
>literature's struggle against banality, as well as on writers as different
>as Nabokov and Sade."
>
>And this last item is not a mention of Nabokov, but a statement that all of
>us will immediately associate with VN: in a local publication's interview
>with the controversial paleontologist and dinosaur expert (and consultant
>on JURASSIC PARK) Robert Bakker, Bakker is quoted as saying "Artists can
>see the world more clearly than scientists. Art is broadening and science,
>if you're not careful,can be narrowing. The best artists are scientists."
>
>Earl Sampson
>Boulder CO
>
>
>Re Earl Sampson's lexical inquiry. If memory serves well (I have no books
or notes at hand to check), Nabokov does use the word "photic" in SPEAK,
MEMORY, in the chapter dealing with his insomnia, which contains other
wonderful words like "hypnagogic" etc. As far as I know (I have spent much
time in collecting remarkable words used by VN, Beckett, Burgess and A.
Huxley), "oology", assuming it is not a misprint -and frankly, I think it is
nonsensical, deliberately so- , strikes me as typical of Beckett (his novel
MURPHY teems with neologisms. By the way, "vagitus" which VN used in PNIN
occurs twice in MURPHY). Burgess, of course, is also known for his penchant
for words that the mediterranean breeze has carried to Britain from Greece
and Rome.
Abdellah Bouazza
Utrecht, the Netherlands
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:20:11 +0200
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Nabokov mentions (fwd)
From: hassnaebouazza <H.Bouazza@stud.let.ruu.nl>
At 02:52 PM 6/11/97 -0700, you wrote:
>From: Earl Sampson <esampson@cu.campus.mci.net>
>
>
>The name Nabokov appears twice in the Daedalus Books Late Spring 1997
>catalog: The first sentence of the blurb for THE LOGODAEDALIAN'S
>DICTIONARY OF INTERESTING AND UNUSUAL WORDS, by George Stone Saussy III,
>reads "What do such weird and wonderful words as _oology_ and _photic_
>(used bu Nabokov and Beckett, Anthony Burgess and John Fowles) actually
>mean?" (Does anyone know where, or if, these two words occur in
>Nabokov?)
>And from the description of HOMO POETICUS: ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS, by Danilo
>Kis: "Here is Kis on nationalism as kitsch and collective paranoia,...on
>literature's struggle against banality, as well as on writers as different
>as Nabokov and Sade."
>
>And this last item is not a mention of Nabokov, but a statement that all of
>us will immediately associate with VN: in a local publication's interview
>with the controversial paleontologist and dinosaur expert (and consultant
>on JURASSIC PARK) Robert Bakker, Bakker is quoted as saying "Artists can
>see the world more clearly than scientists. Art is broadening and science,
>if you're not careful,can be narrowing. The best artists are scientists."
>
>Earl Sampson
>Boulder CO
>
>
>Re Earl Sampson's lexical inquiry. If memory serves well (I have no books
or notes at hand to check), Nabokov does use the word "photic" in SPEAK,
MEMORY, in the chapter dealing with his insomnia, which contains other
wonderful words like "hypnagogic" etc. As far as I know (I have spent much
time in collecting remarkable words used by VN, Beckett, Burgess and A.
Huxley), "oology", assuming it is not a misprint -and frankly, I think it is
nonsensical, deliberately so- , strikes me as typical of Beckett (his novel
MURPHY teems with neologisms. By the way, "vagitus" which VN used in PNIN
occurs twice in MURPHY). Burgess, of course, is also known for his penchant
for words that the mediterranean breeze has carried to Britain from Greece
and Rome.
Abdellah Bouazza
Utrecht, the Netherlands