----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 10:41 PM

Subject: Sv: Fw: Typographic Poetics: VN on Flaubert's punctuation

Just a short digressive remark on Flaubert and Nabokov:

I think Nabokov may have read Marcel Proust's fine little essay on Flaubert's style ("À propos du "style" de Flaubert" in Contre Sainte-Beuve. Paris: Gallimard 1971.)

Incidentally, the essay and lecture on Flaubert both reveal as much about the subbject (Flaubert) as about the writers, Proust and Nabokov, and their poetics. Proust, by focusing on Flaubert's use of French grammar, is concerned with Flaubert's dismantling of his personality, his impersonal and laconic style. Proust perfected, or rather inverted this technique to such a degree that today almost everybody confuses the narrator of À la recherche with the writer. Nabokov focuses on the cadence of Flaubert's sentences and so forth, and certain themes, like the Equine theme. À propos Nabokov's style and the countless dogs in his novels - as an example: at Elphinstone, young Dolores recieves a visit from uncle Gustave with a cocker spaniel pup.

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 12:44 AM

Subject: Fw: Typographic Poetics: VN on Flaubert's punctuation

EDNOTE. NABOKV-L thanks Jacob Wilkenfeld for this item

I’m not sure if this is of interest to you, but at least it’s another quote which deals with specific matters of punctuation: In his lecture on Flaubert’s style, VN says: “I want to draw attention first of all to Flaubert’s use of the word and preceded by a semicolon. (The semicolon is sometimes replaced by a lame comma in the English translations, but we will put the semicolon back.)…”