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Re: Query on quote from intro to Bend Sinister
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While on the quotation-spotting game (oft called Author! Author!), I submit
the following, with apologies if it has already been discussed on this
forum. Name the author/source, preferably without excessive googling. Hint:
the quote is translated from the original Russian text:
What I have come to like best in the whole of Russian literature is the
childlike Russian quality of Pushkin and Chekhov, their shy unconcern with
such high-sounding matters as the ultimate purpose of mankind or their own
salvation ... While Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky worried and looked for
the meaning of life and prepared for death and drew up balance-sheets, these
two [Pushkin, Chekhov] were distracted, right up to the end of their lives,
by the current, individual tasks imposed on them by their vocation as
writers, and in the course of fulfilling these tasks they lived their lives,
quietly, treating both their lives and their work as private, individual
matters, of no concern to anyone else.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 23/06/2011 18:29, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> Although Jansy Mello got there first, Hafid Bouazza and A. Bouazza also
> correctly answered Mike Stauss's question about the quotation from the
> introduction to Bend Sinister. On the structure of Nabokov's introductions,
> by the way, I recommend Charles Nicol's essay in the first issue of Nabokov
> Studies.
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the following, with apologies if it has already been discussed on this
forum. Name the author/source, preferably without excessive googling. Hint:
the quote is translated from the original Russian text:
What I have come to like best in the whole of Russian literature is the
childlike Russian quality of Pushkin and Chekhov, their shy unconcern with
such high-sounding matters as the ultimate purpose of mankind or their own
salvation ... While Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky worried and looked for
the meaning of life and prepared for death and drew up balance-sheets, these
two [Pushkin, Chekhov] were distracted, right up to the end of their lives,
by the current, individual tasks imposed on them by their vocation as
writers, and in the course of fulfilling these tasks they lived their lives,
quietly, treating both their lives and their work as private, individual
matters, of no concern to anyone else.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 23/06/2011 18:29, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> Although Jansy Mello got there first, Hafid Bouazza and A. Bouazza also
> correctly answered Mike Stauss's question about the quotation from the
> introduction to Bend Sinister. On the structure of Nabokov's introductions,
> by the way, I recommend Charles Nicol's essay in the first issue of Nabokov
> Studies.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/