Complete article at the following URL:
http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2007/07/t-hide-ruin-of-his-dreams.html
`To Hide the Ruin of His Dreams'
In 1970, Triquarterly published a festschrift
for Vladimir Nabokov and that's how I first heard of Morris Bishop, the
man responsible in 1948 for hiring the Russian novelist to teach at
Cornell University, where Bishop was professor of Romance literature.
In his 11 years at Cornell, Nabokov wrote, edited or translated Pnin, Lolita, Conclusive Evidence, The Song of Igor's Campaign, Eugene Onegin,
and various poems, stories and articles on lepidoptera. Bishop and
Nabokov became fond friends, and here's Bishop's summary of the
Russian's years in Ithaca:
"On the whole, I think the Cornell
years were useful for the artist. He gained security, time for abundant
production, and knowledge of the American background, which he turned
splendidly to account. He immersed himself in the mainstream of
American bourgeois culture, and thus learned a whole subject-matter.
The Cornell experience was a good thing for Nabokov; his presence was
also a very good thing for Cornell."
[ ... ]
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