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Fw: [NABOKOV-LIST] [SIGHTING] A sighting, a tease?
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 7:30 PM
Subject: [NABOKOV-LIST] [SIGHTING] A sighting, a tease?
Dear List,
In his opening lecture on English Literature, Nabokov says that "... great novels are great fairy tales". In SO he adds: "My greatest masterpieces of twentieth century prose are, in this order: Joyce's Ulyssses; Kafka's Transformation; Bilely's Petersburg; and the first half of Proust's fairy-tale In Search of Lost Time."
When I first came accross Ian McEwan's description of two great novels as being "fairy-tales", I thought it was only a coincidence. But when several pages later I encountered another reference to fairy-tales and Kafka, in the context of literature and art, I concluded that McEwan ("Saturday", 2005) had Nabokov in his mind - although I couldn't understand what he might have intended with these mentions.
chapter 2, third part: "Henry read Anna Karenin and Madame Bovary [...] these sophisticated fairy-tales."
chapter 3, second part: "John gave her Kafka's Metamorphosis [...] this domestic fairy-tale."
(I'm reading his novel in a translation, so I cannot offer his exact words or the pages numbers.)
As an expert in insect metamorphosis I'm certain that VN had good reason to to translate the title of Kafka's work as "Transformation," thereby de-emphasizing an entomological suggestion of programmed transformations, and indicating the kind of metamorphosis that should be expected in Kafka's "fairy-tale". And yet, I don't think Nabokov described Kafka's, Joyce's, Bilely's or Proust's "fairy tales" in the sense of the kind of stories read to children at bedtime.
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