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Fw: Fw: Stephen King & Nabokov
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EDNOTE. CHAZ NICOL is a co-founder of the now venerable Vladimir Nabokov
Society.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Nicol" <ejnicol@isugw.indstate.edu>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (48
lines) ------------------
> I had the same thought too; it must be inescapable. I wish this story had
been available last semester when I taught a course in the American short
story, including "Signs and Symbols." What a clear demonstration of why
Nabokov is a great writer, King a facile second-rater with good writing
skills but unexamined assumptions.
>
> Chaz
>
> >>> chtodel@cox.net 06/29/03 09:56PM >>>
> EDNOTE. MAry Bellino, Associate Editor of NABOKOV STUDIES, responds to my
> query "If you have THE NEW YORKER of June 30 at hand, take a look at
Stephen
> King's short story "Harvey's Dream". Does it remind you of something? Does
> anyone have King's e-mail address?
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (31
> lines) ------------------
> > Yes, I had the same thought -- that the Stephen King story
> > "Harvey's Dream" (in the June 30th New Yorker) has some
> > resemblance to VN's story "Signs and Symbols." Besides the
> > more superficial similarities (main character suffering from
> > a mental illness that may or may not give him clairvoyant
> > powers, ringing phone at the end of the story) both stories
> > have endings that may be said to be overdetermined, in that
> > by the time you get to the end you feel that there is really
> > no place else for the plot to go. In VN's case, of course,
> > this was a deliberate strategy used to make a metafictional
> > point by manipulating a reader who has learned to look for
> > "signs and symbols" in a literary text. With King, though,
> > it seems to me that in his New Yorker stories he's trying to
> > show that the pulp-fiction horror genre can be elevated to
> > the status of serious lit-rachure. Whether or not he's been
> > successful at this is another question.
> >
> > I also wondered whether King had in mind the 1950 movie
> > "Harvey," starring James Stewart (directed by Henry Koster,
> > screenplay by Oscar Brodney from a 1944 play by Mary Chase;
> > synopsis at
> > http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Harvey-1009261/about.php).
> > The film is sufficiently well-known that the King story
> > brought it to my mind even though I've never actually seen it.
> >
> > And speaking of horror, an internet search turned up the
> > news that "Harvey" is going to be remade, starring . . .
> > John Travolta. No word on whether he's going to play the
> > James Stewart character or the imaginary rabbit.
> >
> > Mary
>
>
Society.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Nicol" <ejnicol@isugw.indstate.edu>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (48
lines) ------------------
> I had the same thought too; it must be inescapable. I wish this story had
been available last semester when I taught a course in the American short
story, including "Signs and Symbols." What a clear demonstration of why
Nabokov is a great writer, King a facile second-rater with good writing
skills but unexamined assumptions.
>
> Chaz
>
> >>> chtodel@cox.net 06/29/03 09:56PM >>>
> EDNOTE. MAry Bellino, Associate Editor of NABOKOV STUDIES, responds to my
> query "If you have THE NEW YORKER of June 30 at hand, take a look at
Stephen
> King's short story "Harvey's Dream". Does it remind you of something? Does
> anyone have King's e-mail address?
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (31
> lines) ------------------
> > Yes, I had the same thought -- that the Stephen King story
> > "Harvey's Dream" (in the June 30th New Yorker) has some
> > resemblance to VN's story "Signs and Symbols." Besides the
> > more superficial similarities (main character suffering from
> > a mental illness that may or may not give him clairvoyant
> > powers, ringing phone at the end of the story) both stories
> > have endings that may be said to be overdetermined, in that
> > by the time you get to the end you feel that there is really
> > no place else for the plot to go. In VN's case, of course,
> > this was a deliberate strategy used to make a metafictional
> > point by manipulating a reader who has learned to look for
> > "signs and symbols" in a literary text. With King, though,
> > it seems to me that in his New Yorker stories he's trying to
> > show that the pulp-fiction horror genre can be elevated to
> > the status of serious lit-rachure. Whether or not he's been
> > successful at this is another question.
> >
> > I also wondered whether King had in mind the 1950 movie
> > "Harvey," starring James Stewart (directed by Henry Koster,
> > screenplay by Oscar Brodney from a 1944 play by Mary Chase;
> > synopsis at
> > http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Harvey-1009261/about.php).
> > The film is sufficiently well-known that the King story
> > brought it to my mind even though I've never actually seen it.
> >
> > And speaking of horror, an internet search turned up the
> > news that "Harvey" is going to be remade, starring . . .
> > John Travolta. No word on whether he's going to play the
> > James Stewart character or the imaginary rabbit.
> >
> > Mary
>
>