Subject
sand, honey & Speak, Memory
Date
Body
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
Assuming that the translation was, indeed, accurate, I strongly suspect
that the women in question meant it as an utmost compliment to Nabokov
(his prose being as desirable and enjoyable as honey) while I do not get
the same impression with the wet sand allusion.
Galya Diment
On Wed, 28 Feb 1996, Donald Barton Johnson wrote:
> From: joseph piercy <j9250308@wlv.ac.uk>
>
> ------------------
> The recent posting concerning an article on the Buckley
> clan and the teaching of memoir writing brought to mind a comment I
> received after giving a paper last year titled "Nabokov And The Craft of
> Writing" ( which also drew extensively on "Speak, Memory"). During the
> post-presentation discussion I received a question from two women who were
> visiting the U.K from Moscow. As my command of Russian is very sparse I
> had to rely upon a colleague to interpret for me. From what I can
> remember the point was as follows : "Reading Nabokov is like swimming in
> honey- do you agree ?". I think that the two women were making the same
> point as the student who who made the "wading through wet sand" comment-
> although somehow "swimming in honey" sounds more appropriate.
>
> Joseph Piercy/ University Of Wolverhampton /U.K
>
Assuming that the translation was, indeed, accurate, I strongly suspect
that the women in question meant it as an utmost compliment to Nabokov
(his prose being as desirable and enjoyable as honey) while I do not get
the same impression with the wet sand allusion.
Galya Diment
On Wed, 28 Feb 1996, Donald Barton Johnson wrote:
> From: joseph piercy <j9250308@wlv.ac.uk>
>
> ------------------
> The recent posting concerning an article on the Buckley
> clan and the teaching of memoir writing brought to mind a comment I
> received after giving a paper last year titled "Nabokov And The Craft of
> Writing" ( which also drew extensively on "Speak, Memory"). During the
> post-presentation discussion I received a question from two women who were
> visiting the U.K from Moscow. As my command of Russian is very sparse I
> had to rely upon a colleague to interpret for me. From what I can
> remember the point was as follows : "Reading Nabokov is like swimming in
> honey- do you agree ?". I think that the two women were making the same
> point as the student who who made the "wading through wet sand" comment-
> although somehow "swimming in honey" sounds more appropriate.
>
> Joseph Piercy/ University Of Wolverhampton /U.K
>