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Re: SIGHTING--Smithsonian Magazine
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The entire essay is well worth reading. Jim Twiggs
SMITHSONIAN.com
The Trouble With Autobiography
Novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux examines other authors' autobiographies
to prove why this piece will suffice for his
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Trouble-With-Autobiography.html
*****
Some writers not only improve on an earlier biography but find oblique ways to
praise themselves. Vladimir Nabokov wrote Conclusive Evidence when he was 52,
then rewrote and expanded it 15 years later, as Speak, Memory, a more playful,
pedantic and bejeweled version of the first autobiography. Or is it fiction? At
least one chapter he had published in a collection of short stories
(“Mademoiselle O”) years earlier. And there is a colorful character whom Nabokov
mentions in both versions, one V. Sirin. “The author that interested me most was
naturally Sirin,” Nabokov writes, and after gushing over the sublime magic of
the man’s prose, adds: “Across the dark sky of exile, Sirin passed... like a
meteor, and disappeared, leaving nothing much else behind him than a vague sense
of uneasiness.”
Who was this Russian émigré, this brilliant literary paragon? It was Nabokov
himself. “V. Sirin” was Nabokov’s pen name when, living in Paris and Berlin, he
still wrote novels in Russian, and—ever the tease—he used his autobiography to
extol his early self as a romantic enigma.
*****
________________________________
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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
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SMITHSONIAN.com
The Trouble With Autobiography
Novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux examines other authors' autobiographies
to prove why this piece will suffice for his
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Trouble-With-Autobiography.html
*****
Some writers not only improve on an earlier biography but find oblique ways to
praise themselves. Vladimir Nabokov wrote Conclusive Evidence when he was 52,
then rewrote and expanded it 15 years later, as Speak, Memory, a more playful,
pedantic and bejeweled version of the first autobiography. Or is it fiction? At
least one chapter he had published in a collection of short stories
(“Mademoiselle O”) years earlier. And there is a colorful character whom Nabokov
mentions in both versions, one V. Sirin. “The author that interested me most was
naturally Sirin,” Nabokov writes, and after gushing over the sublime magic of
the man’s prose, adds: “Across the dark sky of exile, Sirin passed... like a
meteor, and disappeared, leaving nothing much else behind him than a vague sense
of uneasiness.”
Who was this Russian émigré, this brilliant literary paragon? It was Nabokov
himself. “V. Sirin” was Nabokov’s pen name when, living in Paris and Berlin, he
still wrote novels in Russian, and—ever the tease—he used his autobiography to
extol his early self as a romantic enigma.
*****
________________________________
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/