Subject
Qustion in re Maximn Shrayer's abstract "Whay Didn't VN like
Women Writers?"
Women Writers?"
Date
Body
I would be interested to hear exactly what Nabokov had to say about Woolf
and Mansfield - the latter in particular, as I have often thought that their
work was similar in some odd way (maybe I am tracing the influence via
Chekov, who was a major inspiration of Mansfield's) - could you tell me a
little more?
Camille Scaysbrook
> To: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
>
>
> Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College)
>
>
>
> WHY DIDN'T NABOKOV LIKE WOMEN WRITERS?
>
> (ABSTRACT)
>
>
> My paper explores Nabokov's attitudes to woman
> authors as expressed in his fictional, discursive
> and epistolary writings. As we know from Nabokov's
> correspondence, in the early 1930s he was
> particularly interested in what one might call
> "gender-response criticism" and read many works by
> contemporary female authors. Three main topics will
> be considered. First, I examine Nabokov's comments
> on and reviews of works by Russian émigré female
> writers, including Ekaterina Bakunina, Nina
> Berberova, Irina Odoevtseva, and Marina Tsvetaeva
> and others. Second, I inquire into Nabokov's very
> negative reactions to twentieth-century Western
> female authors, and especially to such English
> writers as Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.
> Third, at the heart of my paper lies an analysis of
> two short fictions, the satirical Admiralty Spire"
> (1933) and the feuilletonistic "A Slice of Life"
> (1935). Reminiscent of Nabokov's scathing reviews
> of female novelists and poets, "Admiralty Spire"
> bridges his poetics and his biography. While among
> the least successful of Nabokov's works, "A Slice of
> Life" is important as Nabokov's only experiment with
> creating a female narrator. Possibly explaining why
> Nabokov's considered Woolf's Orlando an example of
> first-rate poshlost', both stories also playfully
> debunk the conventional distinctions among such
> notions as "a female author," "a female persona,"
> and "a female voice/narrator."
>
> Maxim D. Shrayer
> Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages
> Boston College
> Lyons Hall 210
> 140 Commonwealth Avenue
> Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3804 USA
>
> e-mail: shrayerm@bc.edu
> tel. (617) 552-3911
> fax. (617) 552-2286
>
> http://fmwww.bc.edu/SL-V/ShrayerM.html
>
and Mansfield - the latter in particular, as I have often thought that their
work was similar in some odd way (maybe I am tracing the influence via
Chekov, who was a major inspiration of Mansfield's) - could you tell me a
little more?
Camille Scaysbrook
> To: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
>
>
> Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College)
>
>
>
> WHY DIDN'T NABOKOV LIKE WOMEN WRITERS?
>
> (ABSTRACT)
>
>
> My paper explores Nabokov's attitudes to woman
> authors as expressed in his fictional, discursive
> and epistolary writings. As we know from Nabokov's
> correspondence, in the early 1930s he was
> particularly interested in what one might call
> "gender-response criticism" and read many works by
> contemporary female authors. Three main topics will
> be considered. First, I examine Nabokov's comments
> on and reviews of works by Russian émigré female
> writers, including Ekaterina Bakunina, Nina
> Berberova, Irina Odoevtseva, and Marina Tsvetaeva
> and others. Second, I inquire into Nabokov's very
> negative reactions to twentieth-century Western
> female authors, and especially to such English
> writers as Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.
> Third, at the heart of my paper lies an analysis of
> two short fictions, the satirical Admiralty Spire"
> (1933) and the feuilletonistic "A Slice of Life"
> (1935). Reminiscent of Nabokov's scathing reviews
> of female novelists and poets, "Admiralty Spire"
> bridges his poetics and his biography. While among
> the least successful of Nabokov's works, "A Slice of
> Life" is important as Nabokov's only experiment with
> creating a female narrator. Possibly explaining why
> Nabokov's considered Woolf's Orlando an example of
> first-rate poshlost', both stories also playfully
> debunk the conventional distinctions among such
> notions as "a female author," "a female persona,"
> and "a female voice/narrator."
>
> Maxim D. Shrayer
> Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages
> Boston College
> Lyons Hall 210
> 140 Commonwealth Avenue
> Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3804 USA
>
> e-mail: shrayerm@bc.edu
> tel. (617) 552-3911
> fax. (617) 552-2286
>
> http://fmwww.bc.edu/SL-V/ShrayerM.html
>