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Re: Nabokov’s Notes For “The Origin a l of Laura” Go on the Auction Blo ck -and a SIGHTING
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James Studdard: The common thread running through most of the criticism is that the notes (and VN) would have been better served (as Tom Stoppard suggested) being burned...I really am confused by all this piffle.
Mark Bennett: The matter seems straightforward to me: whoever buys the original note cards should burn them.
JM: A symbolic, artsy and self-defeating "auto de fé"?
VN's (possible) last words in it were: “efface”, “expunge”, “erase”, “delete”, “rub out”, “wipe out”, “obliterate”.
All of these are mainly applicable to a written text, not to a flesh and blood "corpus" or to the material surface of a card. Besides they are, in themselves, words and not actions.
I understand their spirit as representing something similar to the liar's paradox, as it has been transformed into a promise by author L.F. Verissimo:
"I'll never lie again. This is the last time, I promise you."
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Mark Bennett: The matter seems straightforward to me: whoever buys the original note cards should burn them.
JM: A symbolic, artsy and self-defeating "auto de fé"?
VN's (possible) last words in it were: “efface”, “expunge”, “erase”, “delete”, “rub out”, “wipe out”, “obliterate”.
All of these are mainly applicable to a written text, not to a flesh and blood "corpus" or to the material surface of a card. Besides they are, in themselves, words and not actions.
I understand their spirit as representing something similar to the liar's paradox, as it has been transformed into a promise by author L.F. Verissimo:
"I'll never lie again. This is the last time, I promise you."
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/