----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 6:05 PM
Subject:
EDNOTE. Ubiratan Mascarenhas, the Brazilian
publisher (Ars Poetica) of avant-garde literature sends
Nabokv-L the following. English translation
provided by Jansy de Mello.
----------------------------
The relativity of our points of view in relation
to our distance in time
A relatividade dos pontos de vistas diante da
distância do tempo
I just came across in the Biography of Vladimir Nabokov a
pearl about relativity, the distance in time:
acabo de ver na biografia de Vladimir Nabokov uma
pérola da relatividade...da distância do tempo:
Vol.2 de Brian Boyd, pg. 144,
According to Brian Boyd, VN, while
explaining to the editor Katharine White the reason why he
was critical about three lines in her husband´s E.B.White play about the
American Eagles and the Russian Bears, wrote:
ele, explicando à editora Katharine White porque
ele criticou três linhas da peça do marido dela, E.B.White, sobre as Eagles
americanas e os Ursos russos:
".... / What I really meant was the
lameness and futility of hoping the Bears might change (if it were physically
and psychologically possible, I would suggest invading the Bears' territory at
once)."
Nabokov's bracketed afterthought may seem
bizarre at this distance, but at the time even Bertrand Russell was ready to
advocate a preventive war against Russian before Stalin built up a nuclear
arsenal and the power to destroy the world.
(Brian Boyd)