Subject
Fw: [NABOKV-L] Cruelty: pop quiz for List members
From
Date
Body
Carolyn Kunin sends the following pop quiz [... since the List has been discussing the question of VN's "cruelty." Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the author who claimed to love his/ her characters "like a cat loves a bird"? ...p.s. obviously not the obvious ]
JM: I tried to settle for Oscar Wilde, because he wrote that "Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword," but he was not referring to his characters and, for him, "a book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written." (his stories for children serve as a proof for his sincerity, whereas they inform us about his intentions qua social satire and "Salomé").
Kinbote (who else could have inserted Boswell's sentence in PF) must have understood Samuel Johnson's plight to protect Hodge, who was fed with oysters, not mice and birds...It must have been another Victorian writer.
A modern reviewer, about "Hate That Cat: A Novel,by Sharon Creech," wrote in quite a different spirit: "I said I love that book / like a cat loves birds /Love to feast on its pages /Love to feast on /Perfect words!" ( is it applicable to TOoL?)
PS: I just read the solution proffered by James Twiggs ( Muriel Spark. A great quote, all right. - FROM A REVIEW OF MARTIN STANNARD'S BIOGRAPHY OF SPARK:
But she denied that her books were amoral or inhuman. They were simply true to life as everyone knew it really was but did not like to say. 'I love all my characters; when I'm writing about them I love them most intensely, like a cat loves a bird.' http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/books/5258633/the-goaway-bird.thtml.) In another posting he also indicated a source about "neosincerity" ( http://www.nextbookpress.com/arts-and-culture/712/sincerity-now/ The article mentions an exhibition called Neosincerity: The Difference Between the Comic and the Cosmic Is a Single Letter--the subtitle being, obviously, a reference to VN*).
* Dear Jim, I'm not sure who mentioned the "comic/cosmic" S-difference first: Nabokov or Italo Calvino. Both have probably reached it quite independently. Calvino uses it in his "Cosmicomics")
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/
JM: I tried to settle for Oscar Wilde, because he wrote that "Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword," but he was not referring to his characters and, for him, "a book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written." (his stories for children serve as a proof for his sincerity, whereas they inform us about his intentions qua social satire and "Salomé").
Kinbote (who else could have inserted Boswell's sentence in PF) must have understood Samuel Johnson's plight to protect Hodge, who was fed with oysters, not mice and birds...It must have been another Victorian writer.
A modern reviewer, about "Hate That Cat: A Novel,by Sharon Creech," wrote in quite a different spirit: "I said I love that book / like a cat loves birds /Love to feast on its pages /Love to feast on /Perfect words!" ( is it applicable to TOoL?)
PS: I just read the solution proffered by James Twiggs ( Muriel Spark. A great quote, all right. - FROM A REVIEW OF MARTIN STANNARD'S BIOGRAPHY OF SPARK:
But she denied that her books were amoral or inhuman. They were simply true to life as everyone knew it really was but did not like to say. 'I love all my characters; when I'm writing about them I love them most intensely, like a cat loves a bird.' http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/books/5258633/the-goaway-bird.thtml.) In another posting he also indicated a source about "neosincerity" ( http://www.nextbookpress.com/arts-and-culture/712/sincerity-now/ The article mentions an exhibition called Neosincerity: The Difference Between the Comic and the Cosmic Is a Single Letter--the subtitle being, obviously, a reference to VN*).
* Dear Jim, I'm not sure who mentioned the "comic/cosmic" S-difference first: Nabokov or Italo Calvino. Both have probably reached it quite independently. Calvino uses it in his "Cosmicomics")
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/