Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014320, Sat, 9 Dec 2006 22:52:29 -0500

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American imaginary feelings
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>Alexey wrote:
One can never know with Nabokov who seems to have read everything, but I suspect that he hasn't heard of Hildebrand's book when he wrote his "Kamera Obskura" (what you say of the Dutch "Camera Obscura" seems to confirm that Nabokov's novel has little in common with it) in the early 1930s. Had he known of its existence, he would probably have chosen a different title. But I think he might have discovered it, not without surprise, later, when he was already an American writer. I suspect, he had learnt of Hildebrand and his CO from the same source that was also mine.


I happen to have to hand a copy of This Quarter, June 1932, published and edited by Edward W.Titus, 4 Rue Delambre, Montparnasse, Paris. The publishers for Great Britain and Dominions were William Heinemann; and for USA & Canada, Ray Long & Richard R.Smith Inc. It contains a short story, in excellent English, by Vladimir Sirin, entitled The Return of Tchorb. I wonder if this V.Sirin ever described or thought of himself, at this time or later, as an “American writer”? Maybe his story had been ghosted into English by another person, perhaps the noble paraphrast, Conmal, multi-lingual Duke of Aros.

The journal also happens to contain a few comments on The Writing of Poetry and quotes Mr T.S.Eliot as declaring: “the writing of poetry is very difficult, almost impossible, because often the poet is unable to distinguish between his actual feelings and what he thinks he is feeling”. The commentator continues: “Not only do we with the above statement emphatically disagree, but we are also convinced that nowadays there is in general far too much chatter about the writing of poetry.” The writer (I suppose it is Edward W.Titus) then goes on to chatter about poetry for the next three pages, instancing in particular The Wreck of the Deutschland as an example of how “a poet can see as excellent poetic possibilities in imaginary feelings as in real”. Is it possible that V.Sirin, in some later incarnation, was influenced in his opinion both of Mr Eliot and on the poeticization of imaginary feelings by this little article? I can offer no conclusion on this point.

Charles

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