Vladimir Nabokov

[StillILearn]

I have a great scanned photo, but I can't get it to paste here.

I'll keep trying.

 

[Peder]

/blushing furiously/
Hi all,
Now I have made it this far in this thread and I have to tell y'all that you do a great thread when that tall talkative guy isn't around. Honestly, it was just so much fun reading this thread. It is so impressive, but you in the midst of it might not notice that so easily. However I sure did. A new Pnin thread sprouted; links were found and posted, including a discussion of Pnin apparently. And the conversation was so interesting and friendly! I don't know why you felt so insistently that you needed that other guy back. (Try to figure out who the narrator is in that sentence ). I thought I would have a lot of posts in response, but just at the moment your thoughts and conversation seem so rounded and complete that I find there is little I can think to add. So I'll just stand here in the corner for a while, half hidden in the shadows of the curtain.
I do appreciate though that when you thought to think of me it was with friendly comments. And they were all correct. I did climb the walls without the computer; and I did get to Borders perhaps a little more than I usually do (and I have the books to prove it -- including one I bought twice ); and I don't know how many times during a day I thought to do something and automatically turned toward the desk, only to realize once again that the computer wasn't there.
And life was totally different, so I actually got some sleep, and did a fair amount of reading. Just for the record, I reread Pnin and scribbled in the margins until I finally settled the narrarator puzzle, in my own mind anyway -- the first time that I ever settled anything about a VN book! Plus I read Transparent Things and Mary. But best of all I restarted Ada and this time completed it. That is really some story! I took me the better part of a day to recover from the accumulated emotions that overwhelmed me all at once when I finally closed the back cover. I don't understand how Nabokov can get someone so involved in a book, but he sure does it to me!
So that is what Ten Days in the Life of Ivan Pederovich were like.
And I missed you all, and this wonderful place, every minute of every day,
So I'm glad to be back,
And you all were missed,
Sincerely,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Ivan Pederovich! I know that the "powers that be" frown upon, and most likely wouldn't change your handle on this here lil forum, but you really should petition them to make it your new Russian Version.....

And that tall guy over there in the corner behind the curtain is expected to come out and play! Especially when he thinks it necessary to make cryptic comments in a certain other thread.........

And all joking aside, you were certainly missed in these parts.
Welcome Home.

 

[steffee]

I don't know why you felt so insistently that you needed that other guy back. (Try to figure out who the narrator is in that sentence ).

Peder, quite simply we needed you back because I, for one, have been tearing my hair out and climbing the walls not being able to solve this narrator puzzle! Only I haven't managed to attend so much to real life...

I did get to Borders perhaps a little more than I usually do (and I have the books to prove it -- including one I bought twice );

Hehe, that made me laugh out loud, Peder.

Just for the record, I reread Pnin and scribbled in the margins until I finally settled the narrarator puzzle, in my own mind anyway -- the first time that I ever settled anything about a VN book!

Yes then, do tell...

But best of all I restarted Ada and this time completed it. That is really some story! I took me the better part of a day to recover from the accumulated emotions that overwhelmed me all at once when I finally closed the back cover. I don't understand how Nabokov can get someone so involved in a book, but he sure does it to me!

Ada was fantastic. I will need at least one reread, possibly two, and then we can discuss it! Pontalba, I think too, said she would like to read Ada next.

So that is what Ten Days in the Life of Ivan Pederovich were like.

Love it!

Ivan Pederovich, it's good to have you back

 

[StillILearn]

Ivan Pederovich




Welcome back. Ivan Pederovich!


Flat on back with toes pointing straight up.

 

[pontalba]

Welcome back. Ivan Pederovich!


Flat on back with toes pointing straight up.

ROTFALOLTIC!!

 

[Peder]

Steffee, Pontalba, Still,
Thanks a million for your welcomes back.

Steffee, re Ada, we might indeed discuss it but I think it will be a long time before I can think or say anything about Lucette with any degree of composure, if ever. It was an amazing novel.

Still,
Don't think I didn't immediately notice the relevance of your toes-up picture! RTOFL. In fact I could not believe my eyes and had to do a triple take to believe it! Where on Earth, or off, did you ever find it? It has to have been from a murder mystery with that, the murderer, walking off in the distance?

Pontalba,
Well, I will join in the fun -- you couldn't keep me away if you tried -- but I do really wish you all could see how nice these discussions look during the past ten days. That was perhaps the one treat from being away, seeing these threads with new eyes. They simply glisten! Not to mention your own wonderful opening to the Pnin discussion. That was simply marvelous!

Be back later,
Have to travel into the City,
Charles

 

[pontalba]

Peder
I thank you for the kind words regarding Pnin...only following the Master Plan, eh? I did re-read rolleyes: ) the threads partially the other day, and I see what you mean, they sound better when re-read! LOL But will be even 'mo' bettah' now that you are back.

So get thee to the City, and hurry back....

 

[pontalba]

Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years by Brian Boyd

In looking over Boyd's bio, I found something I thought y'all would find interesting regarding VN's opinions on Don Quixote. p. 213-214--

He devoted six lectures to Don Quixote. It seems he began his preparation with only remote memories of the novel and a favorable predisposition toward its hero, but as he reread the text minutely, he soon found himself shocked by its crudeness and savagery. Cruel heroes like Humbert Humbert and Van Veen and victims of cruelty like Adam Krug and Timofey Pnin have led some readers--including Edmund Wilson--to suppose Nabokov had a peverse love of inflicting pain. In fact, it should be perfectly apparent that he was outraged by cruelty. Certainly no one could have mistaken his appalled reaction to Don Quixote. He detested the belly laughs Cervantes wanted his readers to derive from his hero's discomfiture, and he repeatedly compared the vicious "fun" of the book with Christ's humiliation and crucifixion, with the Spanish Inquisition, with modern bullfighting.

Nabokov enjoyed thundering against Don Quixote in front of so many students, and told Harry Levin what he thought of the book. "Harvard thinks otherwise,: Levin replied gravely. .......Upsetting received opinions was always one of Nabokov's great pleasures.

Thats our fella!

 

[Peder]

In looking over Boyd's bio, I found something I thought y'all would find interesting regarding VN's opinions on Don Quixote. p. 213-214--


Thats our fella!

Pontalba,
What an excellent post! I am reminded of that article in The Atlantic (I think, by Amis?) that tried to make out VN as a master of pain and tried to assert our complicity in his supposed interest. Now at last, it is such a pleasure to read VN's views of the matter (as so ably summarized by Boyd. Gotta love that man too!) They amount to such a ringing refutation of that Atlantic article! It has been many many years since I read Cervantes' Don quixote as a course requirement, but I still remember its crude and slapstick humor, even if little else. There is one scene that is so appaling vulgar that I have never seen it mentioned or alluded to in any writing since then, and I certainly won't be desrcibing it here. But I suspect that anyone who has read the book probably knows the scene I am referring to, or else can nomiate a scene of their own for equalling appaling. or greater, vilgarity. A recent, and civilized, discussion of Don Quixote over on NYT avoided any but the most oblique allusions to the nature of Cervantes' humor. So I am overjoyed to hear of Nabokov telling it like it was.

Indeed,
That's our guy!
YAY for VN,
Peder

 

[Peder]

My, oh my! Is that post ever full of typos! Guess it was just too early in the morning!

 

[pontalba]

BTW, just in case anybody is interested.....http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/01...ref=sr_1_1/102-7665834-6598541?_encoding=UTF8

Sorry about the long link thingy, but if I try to insert or whatever I lose it.

 

[Peder]

Mirror, mirror on the wall.....

....which is the fairest of them all?

An informal comparison of VN works has come up on the Pnin thread. I thought I would post here some observations out of a book that just came home from Borders with me -- posted here because the observations seem to apply equally to all of VN's works.

Daniel S. Burt speaking, in The Literary 100 - A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of all Time:

...All of his fictions trace developments in an individual's consciousness either toward growth and integration or into decline through obsessions and self-delusions. ...
While it is certainly true that Nabokov's erudition and allusive quality can be daunting (in some cases even exasperating) there is an equally powerful sense of exhiliration in his absolute originality. "One of the functions of all my novels," he asserted, "is to prove that the novel in general does not exist." Each of his works, therefore, is meant to be unique, shaped by the artist's contention that "great writers invent their own worlds."...

So far, in these Nabokov threads, the truth of that statement -- especially the word 'unique' for each different novel -- has been seen in Lolita, The Enchanter and Pnin, and can also be argued as true for Pale Fire, Transparent Things, Mary, and Ada, or Ardor, among works that some of us have also read. There is little denying that each work is a treat in a world entirely unto itself.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Thanks for posting that wonderful exerpt Peder. I think if I had to pick just one word to describe Nabokov's work, it would be unique. Sounds like you have an interesting read ahead of you.

 

[steffee]

Back to this thread then.

I've just discovered I have Despair too. I don't know how I got it

 

[pontalba]

Back to this thread then.

I've just discovered I have Despair too. I don't know how I got it

Whoops, and I didn't think "bookitis" was contageous over the internet! So that Despair would be a viable option as well. Good. We have plenty of time to choose though.

And now that Peder has thrown a spanner in the works (Glory) he disappears! Honestly! LOL

Back a little later.....food is calling.

 

[Peder]

Whoops, and I didn't think "bookitis" was contageous over the internet! So that Despair would be a viable option as well. Good. We have plenty of time to choose though.

And now that Peder has thrown a spanner in the works (Glory) he disappears! Honestly! LOL

Back a little later.....food is calling.

Well, while you are getting much needed nourishment, I'll say I have Despair also. There's no shortage of VN here! Just two missing actually -- Bend Sinister and Beheading. So anything else is easily done just by reaching left from where I am sitting right now. And the two missing ones are just up the road in safe-keeping at Borders. So name anything you wish and I can second it.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Well, either of them would be fine with me. I read the intro to Despair, and part of Glory. It is interesting that Nabokov compares Glory to Ada in that:

...it soars to heights of purity and melancholy that I have only attained in the much later Ada.

And he calls the main character:

Martin is the kindest. uprightest, and most touching of all my young men;.........

In Despair, the intro includes:

Plain readers, on the other hand, will welcome its plain structure and pleasing plot--which, however, is not quite as familiar as the writer of the rude letter in Chapter Eleven assumes it to be.

So, where ever the bouncing ball takes us.............

 

[steffee]

But we haven't finished with Timofey yet!
​

 

[Peder]

But we haven't finished with Timofey yet!
​

Definitely so Steffee,
I know I want to get my nomination in for Woman of the Century over there.
But first some coffee
So it isn't full of typos,
peder