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Re: Re [NABOKV-L] Vadim's demon in LATH
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Alexey Sklyarenko:" 'A demon, I felt, was forcing me to impersonate that other man, that other writer who was and would always be incomparably greater, healthier, and crueler than your obedient servant.' (LATH...) A literary genius, VN was so original that no one dared (was good enough) to ape him in his lifetime; so he probably decided to do it himself and invented Vadim Vadimovich, the writer whom a demon is forcing to impersonate the author of LATH."
JM: "... Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own self to copy." (Strong Opinions, interview with H.Gould).
Following Vladimir Nabokov's views, mimetism in nature is always artistically creative. It's possible to admit that, unlike "copycat apes," there are original asd valuable "artistic mimetists" who are able to assimilate their heritage and process it in novel ways. At present, many authors who were influenced by Vladimir Nabokov's novels have become part of a second generation of writers, those who Samuel Schuman, in the paper he read this year at the "Nabokov Upside Down" conference in New Zealand considered as "Nabokov's Grandchildren".[https://custom.cvent.com/F171CE82AA5645B8BA021387DB23D170/files/d0ef422e8c6642ce956c587060d284fd.pdf ]
Samuel Schuman began his article affirming that " It would not be unreasonable to expect that a right-side-up Nabokov conference would feature papers and presentations focusing upon writers who had influenced VN – Shakespeare, for example. In keeping with the topsy-turvy theme of this gathering, this paper focuses instead upon a small group of popular contemporary English-language novelists who have been deeply influenced by our author. Before we turn to the grandchildren, a word about Nabokov’s first generation literary progeny [...] for example, W. G. Sebald, or Salmon Rushdie... Thomas Pynchon [who] attended several of Nabokov’s famed lectures as a student at Cornell in the 1950s"
Schuman decided to limit his presentation to "three writers born in the ‘60s...None of the three would have been an adult reader at the time of Nabokov’s death in 1977. They are Michael Chabon (b. 1963), David Mitchell (1969) and Arthur Phillips (1969)." He makes "a few general observations about the Nabokovianess of these three" before he looks more closely at one particular novel of each: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Cloud Atlas and The Egyptologist. He adds that Benjamin Hale (1983) might be also included among Nabokov's "grandchildren" with The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, whose flamboyant prose style and its protagonist, offers a " most Lolitaesque work. The title character and narrator oscillates between a sense of his own intellectual and artistic superiority to the common run of humanity, and the recognition that he is a beast … literally: Bruno is a chimpanzee." So here we are, back to humans and another kind of "artistic apes."
In his closing lines, S.Schuman argues "that one underlying theme of both Pale Fire and The Egyptologist is that if we can come to understand our common humanity even with a Kinbote or a Trilipush, or for that matter, a Humbert or a Hermann, then we cannot fail to grasp our connection to all that is human. As we all know, Nabokov has sometimes been misunderstood to be a cruel puppet master, manipulating his flawed characters with irony and even malice. I believe, and I think most Nabokovians have come to think, that the opposite is true: his fictions can teach us about our brotherhood and sisterhood with even the most misshapen of our fellows..."
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JM: "... Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own self to copy." (Strong Opinions, interview with H.Gould).
Following Vladimir Nabokov's views, mimetism in nature is always artistically creative. It's possible to admit that, unlike "copycat apes," there are original asd valuable "artistic mimetists" who are able to assimilate their heritage and process it in novel ways. At present, many authors who were influenced by Vladimir Nabokov's novels have become part of a second generation of writers, those who Samuel Schuman, in the paper he read this year at the "Nabokov Upside Down" conference in New Zealand considered as "Nabokov's Grandchildren".[https://custom.cvent.com/F171CE82AA5645B8BA021387DB23D170/files/d0ef422e8c6642ce956c587060d284fd.pdf ]
Samuel Schuman began his article affirming that " It would not be unreasonable to expect that a right-side-up Nabokov conference would feature papers and presentations focusing upon writers who had influenced VN – Shakespeare, for example. In keeping with the topsy-turvy theme of this gathering, this paper focuses instead upon a small group of popular contemporary English-language novelists who have been deeply influenced by our author. Before we turn to the grandchildren, a word about Nabokov’s first generation literary progeny [...] for example, W. G. Sebald, or Salmon Rushdie... Thomas Pynchon [who] attended several of Nabokov’s famed lectures as a student at Cornell in the 1950s"
Schuman decided to limit his presentation to "three writers born in the ‘60s...None of the three would have been an adult reader at the time of Nabokov’s death in 1977. They are Michael Chabon (b. 1963), David Mitchell (1969) and Arthur Phillips (1969)." He makes "a few general observations about the Nabokovianess of these three" before he looks more closely at one particular novel of each: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Cloud Atlas and The Egyptologist. He adds that Benjamin Hale (1983) might be also included among Nabokov's "grandchildren" with The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, whose flamboyant prose style and its protagonist, offers a " most Lolitaesque work. The title character and narrator oscillates between a sense of his own intellectual and artistic superiority to the common run of humanity, and the recognition that he is a beast … literally: Bruno is a chimpanzee." So here we are, back to humans and another kind of "artistic apes."
In his closing lines, S.Schuman argues "that one underlying theme of both Pale Fire and The Egyptologist is that if we can come to understand our common humanity even with a Kinbote or a Trilipush, or for that matter, a Humbert or a Hermann, then we cannot fail to grasp our connection to all that is human. As we all know, Nabokov has sometimes been misunderstood to be a cruel puppet master, manipulating his flawed characters with irony and even malice. I believe, and I think most Nabokovians have come to think, that the opposite is true: his fictions can teach us about our brotherhood and sisterhood with even the most misshapen of our fellows..."
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/