Subject
Re: [SIGHTING] New edition of V.Nabokov's short-stories ("Contos
Reunidos) PS
Reunidos) PS
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The sentence quoted by reviewer Rinaldo Gama [for the Brazilian 2013 edition of "Contos Reunidos" - "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov"] came from VN's commentaries to "A Slice of Life":
"What was your purpose, sir, in penning this story, forty years ago in Berlin? Well, I did pen it (for I never learned to type and the long reign of the 3B pencil, capped with an eraser, was to start much later-in parked motorcars and motels); but I had never any "purpose" in mind when writing stories-for myself, my wife, and half a dozen dear dead chuckling friends."
Roy Johnson, in his VN-L commentary to this short-story, notes that Nabokov "returns to the seedy and vulgar side of emigre existence to explore a part of it which is almost the polar opposite of the joys of literary creation ...All the characters in 'A Slice of Life' are horrendously degenerate, self-seeking and crude...First of all he chose one of this vulgar company as first person narrator... And the second novelty, a strategy he used only once in all of his work [known to me] is that the narrator is a woman."
However, Nabokov's comments about his "dear dead chuckling friends" contradicts, in part, Roy Johnson's observation (this story lies at "the polar opposite of the joys of literary creation"), perhaps because what are more often remembered, or quoted, are Nabokov's definitions of "aesthetic bliss"* or the descriptions that emphasize his overall "compassionate" perspective...
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* - "For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. . . "
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"What was your purpose, sir, in penning this story, forty years ago in Berlin? Well, I did pen it (for I never learned to type and the long reign of the 3B pencil, capped with an eraser, was to start much later-in parked motorcars and motels); but I had never any "purpose" in mind when writing stories-for myself, my wife, and half a dozen dear dead chuckling friends."
Roy Johnson, in his VN-L commentary to this short-story, notes that Nabokov "returns to the seedy and vulgar side of emigre existence to explore a part of it which is almost the polar opposite of the joys of literary creation ...All the characters in 'A Slice of Life' are horrendously degenerate, self-seeking and crude...First of all he chose one of this vulgar company as first person narrator... And the second novelty, a strategy he used only once in all of his work [known to me] is that the narrator is a woman."
However, Nabokov's comments about his "dear dead chuckling friends" contradicts, in part, Roy Johnson's observation (this story lies at "the polar opposite of the joys of literary creation"), perhaps because what are more often remembered, or quoted, are Nabokov's definitions of "aesthetic bliss"* or the descriptions that emphasize his overall "compassionate" perspective...
...................................................................................................................................
* - "For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. . . "
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/