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Fw: Fw: Don Watson on Lolita
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Date
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Naiman" <naiman@socrates.berkeley.edu>
> There ought to be a place for a virtual museum exhibiting passages from
Lolita in selective, partial quotation. (Zembla?) Many of them would, I
suspect, involve similar instances of gynecological surgery.
>
>
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <nitrogen14@australia.edu>
> >To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> >Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 5:45 PM
> >Subject: Don Watson on Lolita
> >
> >
> >>
> >> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (29
> >lines) ------------------
> >> In his recent Australian book 'Death Sentence' (Knopf 2003
> >> <www.randomhouse.com.au>), Don Watson attacks the rise of managerial
> >> English. I don't think much of this book, but that's neither here nor
> >> there. The following extract will be of interest to nabokv-l; I am
typing
> >> it in myself, but the ellipses are Watson's. I should add that Dr
Watson
> >> was a speechwriter to Paul Keating, Australian Prime Minister for four
> >> years in the early 1990's.
> >> --Peter Hayes
> >>
> >> from pp 18-9:
> >> The change is foreseen in another masterpiece of those years, Vladimir
> >> Nabokov's *Lolita*. The principal of Lolita's school tells Humbert
> >Humbert:
> >>
> >> .... we are more interested in communication than composition. That is,
> >with
> >> due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to
*communicate*
> >> freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty
old
> >> books ...We think, Dr Humbert, in organismal and organisational terms
...
> >> What do we mean by education? ... we live not only in a world of
thoughts
> >> but a world of things ... Words without experience are meaningless.
> >>
> >> The Principal's principles are those of the modern manager and
> >> communications teacher. He wanted to leave out of Lolita's education
what
> >> they leave out: namely, the human mind - the thing that arrives at
meaning
> >> through language and will not, without coercion or deceit, reduce to a
cog
> >> in a machine or an item or organisation. Nabokov's Principal has
triumphed
> >> absolutely.
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
From: "Eric Naiman" <naiman@socrates.berkeley.edu>
> There ought to be a place for a virtual museum exhibiting passages from
Lolita in selective, partial quotation. (Zembla?) Many of them would, I
suspect, involve similar instances of gynecological surgery.
>
>
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <nitrogen14@australia.edu>
> >To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> >Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 5:45 PM
> >Subject: Don Watson on Lolita
> >
> >
> >>
> >> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (29
> >lines) ------------------
> >> In his recent Australian book 'Death Sentence' (Knopf 2003
> >> <www.randomhouse.com.au>), Don Watson attacks the rise of managerial
> >> English. I don't think much of this book, but that's neither here nor
> >> there. The following extract will be of interest to nabokv-l; I am
typing
> >> it in myself, but the ellipses are Watson's. I should add that Dr
Watson
> >> was a speechwriter to Paul Keating, Australian Prime Minister for four
> >> years in the early 1990's.
> >> --Peter Hayes
> >>
> >> from pp 18-9:
> >> The change is foreseen in another masterpiece of those years, Vladimir
> >> Nabokov's *Lolita*. The principal of Lolita's school tells Humbert
> >Humbert:
> >>
> >> .... we are more interested in communication than composition. That is,
> >with
> >> due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to
*communicate*
> >> freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty
old
> >> books ...We think, Dr Humbert, in organismal and organisational terms
...
> >> What do we mean by education? ... we live not only in a world of
thoughts
> >> but a world of things ... Words without experience are meaningless.
> >>
> >> The Principal's principles are those of the modern manager and
> >> communications teacher. He wanted to leave out of Lolita's education
what
> >> they leave out: namely, the human mind - the thing that arrives at
meaning
> >> through language and will not, without coercion or deceit, reduce to a
cog
> >> in a machine or an item or organisation. Nabokov's Principal has
triumphed
> >> absolutely.
> >>
> >>
> >>
>