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Re: THOUGHTS: VN and Wells
From
Date
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Frances: one answer to your unanswerable question is syllabus constraint,
well known to all lecturers! VN had to choose a small, exemplary set of
authors, not necessarily based on any personal league table.¹ Not an easy
task. Recall that Jane Austen, no less, was a late, rather reluctant,
addition to the lecture/essay series following intense lobbying from Bunny
Wilson (they were buddies back then).
Alexey also poses an unanswerable poser! Which is not to deny the fun of
allusional speculations, idle or otherwise. Statistically, one can compute
the prevalence of the word shadow¹ (not just the ubiquitous natural
phenomenon, but its hundreds of metaphorical siblings relating to impending
death and the tricks of spies) and feel unconvinced of any direct, provable
connection between HGW¹s title and the Shade/Shadow themes of Pale Fire.
Now, had Melville wrote Moby Omoplates, one might have a firmer deductive
backbone.
PS: Alexey, don¹t ever expect any sympathy from me: your
ex-St-Petersberg-Zenit star, Arshavin (aka Short Arse), committed the
unpardonable sin of scoring four goals against Liverpool FC (a memorable LFC
4, Arsenal 4 tie).
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
On 06/01/2010 12:34, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
> Subject:
> RE: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Carlyle
> From:
> frances assa <franassa@hotmail.com> <mailto:franassa@hotmail.com>
> Date:
> Tue, 5 Jan 2010 20:32:09 -0500
> To:
> Vladimir Nabokov Forum <nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>
> <mailto:nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>
> Thank you, Alexey, for the references to Wells in VN's works. If VN really
> did think so highly of Wells, why did he not choose him for his essays on
> English novels?
>
> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 01:41:31 +0300
> From: skylark05@MAIL.RU
> Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Carlyle
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
>
> Frances,
> Thanks for your correction. You ask whether VN really thought The Invisible
> Man to be one of the greatest novels in English literature. I think he did. He
> was a great admirer of Wells' novels and listed as many as five of them among
> his favorite books: The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Country of the
> Blind, The War of the Worlds and The First Men on the Moon (Strong Opinions,
> p. 175). In LATH there are allusions to Passionate Friends and The Island of
> Dr Moreau. What VN thought of Wells' Russia in The Shadows* (in which the
> author famously calls Lenin "The Dreamer in the Kremlin"), written after HGW's
> visit to Petrograd and Moscow of the War Communism years, is a different
> question. Btw., here you can read an article by Martin Gardner on Wells' book:
> http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/h-g-wells-in-russia/.
>
> *Do the Shadows in Pale Fire have anything to do with the title of Wells'
> book, I wonder?
>
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well known to all lecturers! VN had to choose a small, exemplary set of
authors, not necessarily based on any personal league table.¹ Not an easy
task. Recall that Jane Austen, no less, was a late, rather reluctant,
addition to the lecture/essay series following intense lobbying from Bunny
Wilson (they were buddies back then).
Alexey also poses an unanswerable poser! Which is not to deny the fun of
allusional speculations, idle or otherwise. Statistically, one can compute
the prevalence of the word shadow¹ (not just the ubiquitous natural
phenomenon, but its hundreds of metaphorical siblings relating to impending
death and the tricks of spies) and feel unconvinced of any direct, provable
connection between HGW¹s title and the Shade/Shadow themes of Pale Fire.
Now, had Melville wrote Moby Omoplates, one might have a firmer deductive
backbone.
PS: Alexey, don¹t ever expect any sympathy from me: your
ex-St-Petersberg-Zenit star, Arshavin (aka Short Arse), committed the
unpardonable sin of scoring four goals against Liverpool FC (a memorable LFC
4, Arsenal 4 tie).
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
On 06/01/2010 12:34, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
> Subject:
> RE: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Carlyle
> From:
> frances assa <franassa@hotmail.com> <mailto:franassa@hotmail.com>
> Date:
> Tue, 5 Jan 2010 20:32:09 -0500
> To:
> Vladimir Nabokov Forum <nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>
> <mailto:nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>
> Thank you, Alexey, for the references to Wells in VN's works. If VN really
> did think so highly of Wells, why did he not choose him for his essays on
> English novels?
>
> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 01:41:31 +0300
> From: skylark05@MAIL.RU
> Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov and Carlyle
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
>
> Frances,
> Thanks for your correction. You ask whether VN really thought The Invisible
> Man to be one of the greatest novels in English literature. I think he did. He
> was a great admirer of Wells' novels and listed as many as five of them among
> his favorite books: The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Country of the
> Blind, The War of the Worlds and The First Men on the Moon (Strong Opinions,
> p. 175). In LATH there are allusions to Passionate Friends and The Island of
> Dr Moreau. What VN thought of Wells' Russia in The Shadows* (in which the
> author famously calls Lenin "The Dreamer in the Kremlin"), written after HGW's
> visit to Petrograd and Moscow of the War Communism years, is a different
> question. Btw., here you can read an article by Martin Gardner on Wells' book:
> http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/h-g-wells-in-russia/.
>
> *Do the Shadows in Pale Fire have anything to do with the title of Wells'
> book, I wonder?
>
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/