Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0003377, Sun, 20 Sep 1998 16:36:31 -0700

Subject
Re: VN & Sentiment (fwd)
Date
Body
There is a line in The Gift that can be used as an all-purpose response to
such charges of inconsistency:

"one's own truth is not to blame if it coincides with the truth
some poor fellow has borrowed....."


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> From: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com>
>
> > Tim Henderson<thenders@mail.lanline.com> wrote:
>
> [about a definition of 'sentimental' in _Eugene Onegin_'s commentary]
>
> > Does this strike anyone else as a definition that fits the word
> > "melodramatic" better than "sentimental" in the sense of the Salinger
> > quote discussed earlier -- roughly, an unnatural degree of 'tenderness'
> -------------
> I would say that while the definition itself is little more than a
> cute silly saying (a "sentimental" novel need not include "misdaventures
> of conventional virtue", much less be confined to them), generally
> Nabokov's "sentimental" is indeed close to "melodramatic", although
> the former is more general.
>
> Nor is Nabokov himself free from the disease of sentimentality on his
> own terms, or so it would seem to me. I have in mind, for instance, the
> horrible and unbearably melodramatic poem from "Dar" quote below, and
> would be interested in what others think of its virtues. The Russian
> version has somewhat more of poshlust in it, while the English
> translation is somewhat worse of a poem, generally.
>
> One night between sunset and river Odnazhdy my pod vecher oba
> On the old bridge we stood, you and I. Stoyali na starom mostu.
> Will you ever forget it, I quieried, Skazhi mne, sprosil ya, do groba
> That particular swift that went by? zapomnish - von lastochku tu?
> And you answered, so earnestly: Never! I ty otvechala: eshe by!
> And what sobs made us suddenly shiver, I kak my zaplakali oba,
> What a cry life emitted in flight! kak vskriknula zhizn' na letu...
> Till we die, till tomorrow, for ever, Do zavtra, naveki, do groba, -
> You and I on that old bridge on night. odnazhdy, na starom mostu...
>
> --
> Anatoly Vorobey,
> mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
> "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
>