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Re: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov/Paul de Man
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Date
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----- Forwarded message from mmillea@ifone.com -----
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 18:57:20 -0000 (GMT)
From: Michael Millea <mmillea@ifone.com>
Here is Nabokov-de Man link. Nabokov left Cornell in January 1959, and
Paul de Man, with his newly minted Harvard doctorate, was hired by Cornell
in 1960. Since de Man was a former Nazi and the author of a number of
shrill, trashy anti-Semitic diatribes, Nabokov, whose views on
anti-Semitism are well known, probably would have thought he left Cornell
at just the right time.
Although I've never come across any evidence that Nabokov was even aware
of de Man, two of his creations, Professor Hagen and Bodo Falternfels,
give some indication that he must have bumped into similar postwar
flotsam.
Michael
> Andrew - you may be right there, though I just read a review and
> apparently the critic (?) Paul de Man was part-inspiration for the
> narrator. I wonder if there is a Nabokov-de Man link. That would be an
> interesting connection.
>
> Brian Howell
>
>
> On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:15:52 -0800, "Donald B. Johnson"
> <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> said:
>> Brian,
>>
>> From the quote you offer, and the description of the Banville character
>> as
>> "some kind of academic or critic," it looks to me as if Banville may
>> have
>> been influenced not so much by Nabokov himself as by the Nabokov
>> character
>> Charles Kinbote in the novel Pale Fire.
>>
>> I'm not familiar with Mr. Banville's work, though, so I just throw out
>> this
>> thought for whatever it may be worth.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
>> Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 6:58 PM
>> Subject: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov
>>
>>
>> > Parallels between Nabokov and John Banville (sardonic tone,
>> > mischievousness, confessional narrative, unreliable narrators etc.)
>> > have been noted before, but I am currently reading Banville's
>> _Shroud_,
>> > whose protagonist (Axel Vander) is quite a dissimulator/unreliable
>> > narrator. From my reading so far, he seems to have been some kind of
>> > academic or critic and he offers up this summation. I thought Banville
>> > could just as easily have had not just himself but Nabokov in mind
>> when
>> > he wrote the following (notwithstanding the unflattering tail-end of
>> > this passage?):
>> >
>> > '. all were united in acclaiming my mastery of the language, the tone
>> > and pitch of my singular voice; even my critics, and there were more
>> > than a few of them, could only stand back and watch in frustration as
>> > their best barbs skidded off the high gloss of my prose style. This
>> > surprised as much as it pleased me; how they could not see, in hiding
>> > behind the brashness and bravado of what I wrote, the trembling
>> > autodidact hunched over his Webster's, his Chicago Manual, his
>> Grammar
>> > for Foreign Students? Perhaps it was the very bizarreries of usage
>> > which
>> > I unavoidably fell into that they took for the willed eccentricities
>> in
>> > which they imagined only a lord of language would dare to indulge.'
>> > (pp.
>> > 62-63, U.K. Picador edition).
>> >
>> > What is more, Axel Vander is almost an anagram (if that's possible) of
>> > the name of the narrator of the first part of what I believe is a
>> > trilogy in his previous novel, Eclipse - Alexander Cleave. Indeed, the
>> > two narrators might be the same person, as Vander infers that he has
>> > adopted a new identity. And I wonder if that Vander refers to the Van
>> of
>> > _Ada_?
>> >
>> > Brian Howell
>> >
>> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>>
>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
Michael
Michael Millea
Business Affairs Director
21 Castle Street
Castlefield
Manchester M3 4SW
United Kingdom
Mobile: +44-7887-760-209
Direct: +44-161-827-8218
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 18:57:20 -0000 (GMT)
From: Michael Millea <mmillea@ifone.com>
Here is Nabokov-de Man link. Nabokov left Cornell in January 1959, and
Paul de Man, with his newly minted Harvard doctorate, was hired by Cornell
in 1960. Since de Man was a former Nazi and the author of a number of
shrill, trashy anti-Semitic diatribes, Nabokov, whose views on
anti-Semitism are well known, probably would have thought he left Cornell
at just the right time.
Although I've never come across any evidence that Nabokov was even aware
of de Man, two of his creations, Professor Hagen and Bodo Falternfels,
give some indication that he must have bumped into similar postwar
flotsam.
Michael
> Andrew - you may be right there, though I just read a review and
> apparently the critic (?) Paul de Man was part-inspiration for the
> narrator. I wonder if there is a Nabokov-de Man link. That would be an
> interesting connection.
>
> Brian Howell
>
>
> On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 14:15:52 -0800, "Donald B. Johnson"
> <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> said:
>> Brian,
>>
>> From the quote you offer, and the description of the Banville character
>> as
>> "some kind of academic or critic," it looks to me as if Banville may
>> have
>> been influenced not so much by Nabokov himself as by the Nabokov
>> character
>> Charles Kinbote in the novel Pale Fire.
>>
>> I'm not familiar with Mr. Banville's work, though, so I just throw out
>> this
>> thought for whatever it may be worth.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
>> Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 6:58 PM
>> Subject: Fwd: Banville and Nabokov
>>
>>
>> > Parallels between Nabokov and John Banville (sardonic tone,
>> > mischievousness, confessional narrative, unreliable narrators etc.)
>> > have been noted before, but I am currently reading Banville's
>> _Shroud_,
>> > whose protagonist (Axel Vander) is quite a dissimulator/unreliable
>> > narrator. From my reading so far, he seems to have been some kind of
>> > academic or critic and he offers up this summation. I thought Banville
>> > could just as easily have had not just himself but Nabokov in mind
>> when
>> > he wrote the following (notwithstanding the unflattering tail-end of
>> > this passage?):
>> >
>> > '. all were united in acclaiming my mastery of the language, the tone
>> > and pitch of my singular voice; even my critics, and there were more
>> > than a few of them, could only stand back and watch in frustration as
>> > their best barbs skidded off the high gloss of my prose style. This
>> > surprised as much as it pleased me; how they could not see, in hiding
>> > behind the brashness and bravado of what I wrote, the trembling
>> > autodidact hunched over his Webster's, his Chicago Manual, his
>> Grammar
>> > for Foreign Students? Perhaps it was the very bizarreries of usage
>> > which
>> > I unavoidably fell into that they took for the willed eccentricities
>> in
>> > which they imagined only a lord of language would dare to indulge.'
>> > (pp.
>> > 62-63, U.K. Picador edition).
>> >
>> > What is more, Axel Vander is almost an anagram (if that's possible) of
>> > the name of the narrator of the first part of what I believe is a
>> > trilogy in his previous novel, Eclipse - Alexander Cleave. Indeed, the
>> > two narrators might be the same person, as Vander infers that he has
>> > adopted a new identity. And I wonder if that Vander refers to the Van
>> of
>> > _Ada_?
>> >
>> > Brian Howell
>> >
>> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>>
>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
Michael
Michael Millea
Business Affairs Director
21 Castle Street
Castlefield
Manchester M3 4SW
United Kingdom
Mobile: +44-7887-760-209
Direct: +44-161-827-8218
----- End forwarded message -----