frances assa: This epistolic war between Hapley and Pawkins, however, reminded me most of the Nabokov-Wilson skirmish.

Frances, the polemic in 'The Moth' reminded me of the controversy Pnin reads in the Russian daily 'published since 1918, by an émigré group in Chicago' (chapter three, part 6):

He also perused the current item in a tremendously long and tedious controversy between three émigré factions. It had started by Faction A's accusing Faction B of inertia and illustrating it by the proverb, "He whishes to climb the fir tree but is afraid to scrape his shins." This had provoked an acid letter to the Editor from "An Old Optimist" , entitled "Fir Trees and Inertia", and beginning: "There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.'" In the present issue, there was a two-thousand-word feuilleton contributed by a representative of Fraction C and headed "On Fir Trees, Glass Houses and Optimism," and Pnin read this with great interest and sympathy.  

This is royal fun indeed!

 

2010/3/7 frances assa <franassa@hotmail.com>
Oh, and I forgot one of the best, VN-ish parts of "The Moth":  The very reliable narrator of the story actually footnotes three of the written volleys between the warring entomologists!

 



 


Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:25:41 +0100
From: hafidbouazza@GMAIL.COM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Martin Amis

To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Dear List,

While you are discussing Wells' influence on Nabokov (pity no one seems to have read his short story 'The Moth', which I have pointed out a while ago: it is more important than any green door), I want to show Nabokov's influence on others. On Martin Amis, especially. In his hilarious and delightful short story 'Let Me Count the Times' ( Amis at his best;  from Heavy Water, Johathan Cape, 1998) the reader will find this sentence:

 Her hands mimed their defencelessness as the great muscles rippled and plunged along Vernon's powerful back.

A strong echo of Nabokov's in Despair:

From my magical point of vantage I watched the ripples running and plunging along my muscular back...

There is also this sentence in Amis'  same story:

Vernon always felt desperately ashamed afterwards, and would be a limp spectre of embarrassment and remorse at breakfast the following day.

That 'limp spectre of embarrassment...etc.' reminds me strongly of Nabokov,; I am sure he used 'limp spectre of' at least once, but I cannot pinpoint any passage. At first glance I was reminded of this (also from Despair):


...and my will lay limp in an empty world... - which is not what I am looking for.

Amis' whole erotic story seems to draw heavily from the sexual part in Despair when the narrator dwells on his 'dissociation' during love-making (chapter two).

Best,

Hafid Bouazza

Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.


Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.


Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.