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Re: QUERY: VN on compassion in PNIN
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C. Kunin:" So 'compassionate' might have struck VN as a complete misunderstanding of his real intent of expiation, and thus an insult. The narrator/author is not compassionate, is he? He is dispassionate, selfish and capable of cruelty. The subject of this darker side of VN has been discussed on the List before, but it's been a while. It was kind of the author, though, in Pale Fire, to let us see that Pnin himself survived his author's best intentions to do away with him."
Brian " I bet Stephen is absolutely correct. McConkey probably would have been better off saying he hated Pnin. Not to say that VN couldn't have been more charitable, but he did have a visceral aversion to platitudes."
Jansy Mello: The interactions between Nabokov and his occasional interviewers strike me as instrumental to expose a particular VNian trait. Namely, he seems to be always hoping that someone got at least one of his most cherished points (the hidden patterns, for example). This hope was stronger than any pedagogical project or demonstration (this is what Jay Epstein's article showed to me).
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We all know that VN's writings are multi-level and enclose or disclose different intentions and feelings. We can assume that VV Nabokov was as capable of compassion (even charity,on occasion) as he was able to understand and exert cruelty. In his writings we encounter his extraordinary talent to portray the minds of criminals and victims alike, or innocence and guilt, that is, to portray humanity's mixture of conflicting emotions and virtues (this is why I wonder about any predominant penitential intentions in "Pnin") - without excluding an ineffable striving for transcendence.in both "good-bad" and "strong-weak" characters.
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Brian " I bet Stephen is absolutely correct. McConkey probably would have been better off saying he hated Pnin. Not to say that VN couldn't have been more charitable, but he did have a visceral aversion to platitudes."
Jansy Mello: The interactions between Nabokov and his occasional interviewers strike me as instrumental to expose a particular VNian trait. Namely, he seems to be always hoping that someone got at least one of his most cherished points (the hidden patterns, for example). This hope was stronger than any pedagogical project or demonstration (this is what Jay Epstein's article showed to me).
.
We all know that VN's writings are multi-level and enclose or disclose different intentions and feelings. We can assume that VV Nabokov was as capable of compassion (even charity,on occasion) as he was able to understand and exert cruelty. In his writings we encounter his extraordinary talent to portray the minds of criminals and victims alike, or innocence and guilt, that is, to portray humanity's mixture of conflicting emotions and virtues (this is why I wonder about any predominant penitential intentions in "Pnin") - without excluding an ineffable striving for transcendence.in both "good-bad" and "strong-weak" characters.
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/