Subject
Query: VN and James Hogg: Justified Sinning (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Chaswe <Chaswe@aol.com>
Does anyone have any evidence of VN's ownership, use or reading of James
Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, first published
1824, other editions circa 1922 (?) and 1947? In the last chapter of Despair
Hermann seeks a title for his confessional, such as: "something beginning with
'Memoirs of a --' of a what? .... 'Justification of a Likeness'?"
Hogg's book is a first-person account ("this astounding book" -- Gide) of the
murder of his alter ego by a man justified by virtue of belonging to the
Calvinist "Elect"; ie predetermined to be saved and therefore incapable of
doing wrong. Sinner resembles Pale Fire in being bi-partite, the first part a
commentary on the autobiographical second part; and perhaps in other, deeper
ways.
Was the Justified Sinner translated into Russian or French prior to 1932,
(Otchayanie was "written in 1932, in Berlin") or had VN read it in English?
Any evidence? Any answers?
Charles Harrison Wallace
Does anyone have any evidence of VN's ownership, use or reading of James
Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, first published
1824, other editions circa 1922 (?) and 1947? In the last chapter of Despair
Hermann seeks a title for his confessional, such as: "something beginning with
'Memoirs of a --' of a what? .... 'Justification of a Likeness'?"
Hogg's book is a first-person account ("this astounding book" -- Gide) of the
murder of his alter ego by a man justified by virtue of belonging to the
Calvinist "Elect"; ie predetermined to be saved and therefore incapable of
doing wrong. Sinner resembles Pale Fire in being bi-partite, the first part a
commentary on the autobiographical second part; and perhaps in other, deeper
ways.
Was the Justified Sinner translated into Russian or French prior to 1932,
(Otchayanie was "written in 1932, in Berlin") or had VN read it in English?
Any evidence? Any answers?
Charles Harrison Wallace