Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001389, Mon, 28 Oct 1996 12:37:40 -0700

Subject
Phyllis Roth, Dracula & VN
Date
Body
Perusing the "Life & Style" section of todays LA Times, I was startled to
see "Interview with the Vampire Aficionado" (E1), who turned out to be
Phyllis Roth, Dean of Faculty at Skidmore College, and better known to
many of us as a Nabokov scholar, former President of the Nabokov Society,
and long-time subscriber to NABOKV-L. Among her accomplishments are a
critical biography of Bram Stoker and a mastery of Dracula lore. She was
feted at the first World Dracula Conference held last year in Rumania. In
the interview, she gives high marks to the immortal "Love at First Bite"
and raises the question of "what is safe sex with a vampire." Roth wrote
what was probably the first psychoanalytically-oriented dissertation on VN
and later edited the valuable collection _Critical Essays on Vladimir
Nabokov_ (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1984) which contains in her "Introduction" an
excellent survey of VN scholarship up to that time.
At the end of the interview, she confesses "a longing to return
to Nabokov, or Jane Austen, not Dracula."