Vladimir Nabokov

[pontalba]

You can rip those pages out.
j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k j/k
Who said that?!

Peder

Who was that masked man?

 

[Peder]

Who was that masked man?

Hi-yo Silver! Away!

 

[Peder]

Strathern - on Nabokov's youth

Strathern's Nabokov in 90 Minutes provides refreshing insights into VN and his works. VN himself had, of course, already described his largely rose-tinted earliest memories in Speak, Memory, and through those memories we get glimpses of his upbringing in a landed aristocratic household in Russia before the Revolution. The family lived on an estate and had cooks and servants to prepare and bring the meals to the table, indoor maids for the house, and gardeners and workmen to tend to the gardens and the upkeep of the manson -- a staff of 50!. VN himself had tutors and/or governesses before he went off to school, where he was then driven and arrived grandly by chauffeur. VN, in effect provides a selective and artistic literary view 'from the inside.'

Strathern fills in the more complete and realistic details of the picture, looking at it 'from the outside' so to speak, where we are. In one of his paragraphs he provides a glimpse that beggars at least my imagination!

Nabokov's childhood was cosseted by a team of valets, servants, governesses, gardeners, and so forth, who ministered to the family in its palatial St Petersburg mansion and its extensive rural estates. (The children of these attendantsts acted as ball boys during the young master's tennis games.) In such households the governesses who looked after the children were likely to be imported from England, France or Switzerland, and were unable to speak Russian. Nabokov's parents would speak to them fluently in their own language. As Nabokov himself put it, "I was a perfectly normal tri-lingual child." The governesses accompanied the family on their continental holidays to such established watering holes as Biarritz or Wiesbaden. Nabokov's evocation of the long first-class journeys across Europe contain all the wonder and delight of this priveleged bygone mode of transportation.

I am left gasping for breath!
Peder

 

[pontalba]

I am left gasping for breath!
Peder

Exactly! I knew that his family was "well off" but wow! Nabokov seemed to try to underplay the wealth he grew up knowing.
You know awhile back I bought Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971 This is the revised and expanded edition edited, annotated, and with an introduction essay by Simon Karlinsky.

The parallels between Wilson and Nabokov are many and interesting. But one of the things mentioned about Nabokov was the fact that...well I'll let Karlinsky say it... p. 2

Nabokov's father, a major participant in the opposition movement of pre-revolutionary Russia, may well have ended up with a cabinet post in a democratic post-revolutionary government, had Lenin and Trotsky not established their repressive dictatorship after the October Revolution.

The balance for Wilson of that quote is..

Both were sons of jurists who were involved in politics. Wilson believed that his father might have been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court had a vacancy opened up during Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

Highly recommended.

 

[Peder]

Exactly! I knew that his family was "well off" but wow! Nabokov seemed to try to underplay the wealth he grew up knowing.

Pontalba,
Yes that is a reaction I had also.
He came from a very wealthy family (and I didn't even mention the 2000 acre estate he himself inherited from his uncle!), and he had very strong political feelings, but neither of these parts of his background seem to figure as a central parts of his writings. Rather, he writes more determinedly about more average people, for lack of a better term, and this may account for his close interest in 'poshlost' -- the 'philistine vulgarity' of the middle class that he claimed existed in all countries. Only Ada that I have read so far is a story where, rather conspicuously, the principal characters seem never to worry about money. It starts with Van and Ada and Aqua well-off on an estate that could be mistaken exactly for his own, and goes on from there, across years and continents.
And to complete the thought, and moderate the generalization, Bend Sinister and Invitation to a Beheading are the two novels where political views rear their head prominently, but otherwise also not generally.
Peder

 

[Peder]

And Pontalba,
The parallel quotes are fascinating!
Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya is getting to sound more irresistible all the time. or , I don't know which.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Its not for sure! And I'd have to say that is not strong enough...its more
The parallels between the men is fascinating, even the timing of their meeting was just right. Earlier, not the same friendship (if any at all),and later....well who knows.
And I'm only in the Intro!

Even their writing is at one point referred to as (p.5)

Wilson's To the Finland Station is one of the best guides to the Western sources of Marxism-Leninism, just as Nabokov's novel The Gift is an imaginative examination of its native Russian roots, so that, read together, the two works almost form two sides of an equation.

/eyebrows raised wondering/ How long will it take him to get to Borders and Buy It? LOL
Amazon's cheaper.

 

[pontalba]

Rather, he writes more determinedly about more average people, for lack of a better term, and this may account for his close interest in 'poshlost' -- the 'philistine vulgarity' of the middle class that he claimed existed in all countries.

I think that is exactly on target Peder. And why I like his work so much. His revulsion for hypocrisy comes thru at every turn.

 

[Peder]

I think that is exactly on target Peder. And why I like his work so much. His revulsion for hypocrisy comes thru at every turn.

Pontalba,
I never thought of 'revulsion for hypocrisy' but that too! Definitely.
And I'm weakening, maybe even for 'To the Finland Station' also.
I feel the earth shake,
Under my feet
Goes crumbling down,
Dowwn, dowwn
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Originally posted by Peder
And I'm weakening, maybe even for 'To the Finland Station' also.
I feel the earth shake,
Under my feet
Goes crumbling down,
Dowwn, dowwn

ROTFALOLTIC

Look Out Borders!

 

[pontalba]

Here is an Amazon editorial review of To the Finland Station

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
To the Finald Station is one of the greatest works by 20th-century America’s heralded man of letters. This magisterial study of the revolutionary dream reaches from the French Revolution through the Paris Commune to Russia in 1917, and features brilliant portraits of such figures as Jules Michelet, the great historian of the French people; the utopians Robert Owen and Charles Fourier; the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin; and of course Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Combining his polymathic talents as critic, journalist, historian, and novelist, Edmund Wilson offers an incisive and enduring tribute to the resilience, depth, and passion of the modern culture of protest.

 

[Peder]

Here is an Amazon editorial review of To the Finland Station

Pontalba,
Just a little friendly shove over the edge, eh?
/sliding, sliding, sliding down/
But wait! There's a ledge here!
I may be saved just like Martin. /phew/
But seriously, it sounds like a great book.
Many thanks for the review,
One more to browse for,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
Just a little friendly shove over the edge, eh?
/sliding, sliding, sliding down/
But wait! There's a ledge here!
I may be saved just like Martin. /phew/
But seriously, it sounds like a great book.
Many thanks for the review,
One more to browse for,
Peder

Ledge? What ledge, ain't no ledges 'round these here parts!
let go of the rope, theres nobody else up there....

 

[Peder]

Ledge? What ledge, ain't no ledges 'round these here parts!

But Pontalba,
If Nabokov can create a ledge when he needs one, then I can create a ledge when I need one, can't I? And yeah yeah I know he's Nabokov and I'm not. But still,
Survival is survival,
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

If you two had any ledges, there'd be Nabokov-related books on them anyway.

There's no place to stand.

 

[pontalba]

But Pontalba,
If Nabokov can create a ledge when he needs one, then I can create a ledge when I need one, can't I? And yeah yeah I know he's Nabokov and I'm not. But still,
Survival is survival,
Peder

No, you're Peder...and thats mo' bettah.

 

[pontalba]

If you two had any ledges, there'd be Nabokov-related books on them anyway.

There's no place to stand.

SIL!! You've been peeking at my ledge! heh, heh, heh.....

 

[StillILearn]

Jus' gettin' to know ya.

 

[pontalba]

Jus' gettin' to know ya.

Well now, y'all come on down hear?

Actually, that should be said with a looonnnnggg southern drawl, which I don't possess....much.

 

[Peder]

BTW,
Just finished the re-read of Sebastian Knight. It definitely knocked me down dead flat the second time around. Absolute Toes!
I would call it far and away the best re-read of any so far. At least for me.
Peder