VN COLLATION #11
by Suellen Stringer-Hye
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
Vanderbilt University
stringers@library.vanderbilt.edu

Until such time as the "collation," as we have fondly come to call it, can be reinstated in full form, I shall occasionally post articles of Nabokoviana to the list. Materials for the current compilation were drawn from discussions on a variety of internet bulletin boards most often referred to as "usenet" groups. In a well meaning but perhaps ineffectual stab at privacy I will not for the present mention who actually posted the message but I will usually supply the name of the discussion forum. For further information you can always query me directly.

Signature files are often quotations from a favorite author and work as a kind of literary bumper sticker to encapsulate some essential wisdom that the writer wishes to communicate. Nabokov quotations are frequent candidates and selection is surprisingly unconventional.

I list them here in no particular order:

From rec.arts. movies: "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style"

From rec. humor: "My loathings are simple : stupidity , oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music"--Vladimir Nabokov

(Forgive me but I cannot resist including the QUOTE OF THE WEEK that was the actual reason for the post and since it has a Slavic theme...): "The 350-mile detour in the Trans-Siberian Railway was caused by the Tsar, who drew in the proposed route on a map using a ruler with a notch missing out of it."

From rec. sport. golf: "I am a slave of images. We speak of one thing being like some other thing when what we are really craving to do is to describe something that is like nothing on earth."

From bit. listserve.pagemakr: "Genius is an African who dreams of snow."

This signature file on rec.arts.comics.xbooks prompted another member of the newsgroup to query:

"I just gotta ask. Where did this come from? I know, i(sic) know it says Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire but you gotta admit that ain't very helpful."

"For other needs than sleep Charles Xavier had installed in the middle of the Persian rug-covered floor a so-called patifolia, that is, a huge, oval, luxuriously flounced, swansdown pillow the size of a triple bed"--Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

05/16/95: "Yes, that's real tact for you,' said the director in a low voice and his inflamed froglike eyes grew damp." Vladimir Nabokov

05/17/95: "I am trying to describe these things not to relive them in my present boundless misery, but to sort out the portions of hell and the portion of heaven in that strange, awful, maddening world."--Vladimir Nabokov

05/17/95: "Involuntarily yielding to the temptation of logical development, involuntarily (be careful, Cincinnatus!) forging into a chain all the things that were quite harmless as long as they remained unlinked, he inspired the meaningless with meaning and the lifeless with life."

In the 10 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century that was published in the May 28, 1994 Australian Magazine Lolita ranks at #9 sandwiched between The Sun Also Rises and A Hundred Years of Solitude

Posting her 50-favorites another writer places in the category of books recommended to "almost everyone": "Pnin. This is the simplest, most humane work by a fiendishly good writer (see Grad Level). Transparent Things is also fairly simple."

She also recommends London Fields by Martin Amis calling it "Nabokov with Rabies". At the "Graduate level fiction" she suggests:

" Lolita, Pale Fire, etc. These are rough going but exquisite. Everything he wrote is very fine, subtle, witty, deep."

"Perhaps we should sublimate our impulses toward reading the supposed sublimation of others. As Nabokov pointed out, there is a wafer-thin space between 'therapist' and 'the rapist'."

"Nabokov famously said that there were three levels of reading (I paraphrase) 1) for the story, 2) for the ideas, 3) for the style. It always appalls me to hear that some teachers of literature got retarded at #2."

Because you haven't read it and are fishing instead. Even the great V. Nabokov praised its merits because ... [rest deleted for peremptorary, personal, pedagogical, psychological reasons].

On the related rec.arts.poems, following a haiku written by J.D. Salinger via Seymour Glass, a woman admiring the zenlike" quality of Salinger's art states:

"I really admire writers like that...Leonard Cohen I feel is equally capable of this power ...and a few other writers but they are VERY few...Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, Herman Hesse...."

My favorite appeared on January 5 when a participant of rec.arts.books posted that he had heard of some books written in English which do not use the letter "e." A respondent remarked:

"I believe there are a few other books that fit this particular category, and for some reason I have ( in my mind) Nabokov lingering in this area, but I could be totally off."

Two new books, advertisements for which, appeared on rec. sport. tennis and rec. arts. books include material of interest to the Nabokovian.

Tennis and the Meaning of Life : A Literary Anthology of the Game edited by Jay Jennings has just been published by Breakaway books and claims to include "all of the best fiction and poetry ever penned on the game." Nabokov is included along with E.B. White, Wallace Stegner and others. The publishers describe it as "a 336-page beautifully bound hardcover, with silver-stamped case and red topstained pages". The other is entitled The Supernatural World Of Anne Rice by George Beahm. It appears to be a combination of photographs, interviews,and profile pieces. The final section of the book "Dark Chambers of the Heart: The Erotic World of Anne Rice" will not be published as part of the paperback edition "because of the sexual nature of the material--comments from Rice about sex, pornography, and Lolita (the Nabokov novel) ..." and other themes of erotica. For those interested in perusing this section, a 500 copy limited edition of the book would need to be purchased.

Nabokov has also appeared on newsgroups treating music, film and sports. I save these for another post.