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----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Nicol" <ejnicol@isugw.indstate.edu>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (75
lines) ------------------
> I agree entirely with Mark Bennett. In 1962, reading "Clockwork Orange"
(all that primitive Russian slang!) or "Enderby" was not too different from
reading "Lolita" or "The Defense." That's as highly as I can praise any
modern writer.
>
> The "dandy" description of Nabokov is right on, considering that it comes
from an Englishman who would have been familiar with the kind of influence
Cambridge had on its students out at the time: remember Nabokov's own
descriptions of those days in "Glory" and his slightly later view of himself
as "Vladimirov" in "The Gift."
>
> Obviously the Joyce comparison is wildly exaggerated. We just need to
remember that Burgess wrote two books on Joyce, who was clearly the major
influence on him (Proust seems to be the equivalent modern for Nabokov), and
that in the interview Burgess had just been asked whether "Lolita" had
influenced him.
>
> Charles Nicol
>
> ===========
> >>> chtodel@cox.net 8/26/2003 6:41:52 PM >>>
> Message
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Bennett
> To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:13 PM
> Subject: RE: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
>
>
> Not much to react to, really. Burgess was, at least in print, generous
with his praise for fellow writers, and he frequently said and wrote kind
words about VN. I think AB's remark that "I meet him [VN] halfway in
certain temperamental endowments" is absolutely accurate, and I think anyone
familiar with the work of both men would agree. I suppose that some readers
of this list will take offense at AB's concluding remark that VN was
"unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe," but I don't think this was meant to
disparage VN as much as it was intended to praise Joyce. AB held Joyce in
the absolute highest esteem, as did VN, and, after all, didn't VN say
something similar himself? (Something about his English being pat ball to
Joyce's championship game.) Forecasting literary reputations is an
uncertain enterprise at best, and who knows what writers from the 20th
century will continue to be read and admired in the coming years?
(Something the foxy VN anticipated in his famous "Fulm!
> erford" quip.) If anything, I think Joyce's reputation had diminished
significantly in recent years, at least since the "Scandal of Ulysses"
brouhaha has died down. (And Burgess' reputation took its own hit during
that little fiasco, as he was one of the champions of the discredited Gabler
revision.) Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 3:07 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
>
>
> EDNOTE. Reactions?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> From interview with Anthony Burgess // Paris review. 1973. Vol.14. 56
(Spring), pp.119-163.
>
>
>
> <p.143>
>
>
>
> Has Nabokov influenced your work at all? You've praised "Lolita" highly.
>
> Reading "Lolita" meant that I enjoyed using lists of things in the
"Right to an Answer". I've not been much influenced by Nabokov, nor do I
intend to be I was writing the way I write before I knew he existed. But
I've not been impressed so much by another writer in the last decade or so.
>
>
>
> Yet you've been called an "English Nabokov", probably because of the
cosmopolitan strain and verbal ingenuity in your writing.
>
> No influence. He's a Russian, I'm English. I meet him halfway in certain
temperamental endowments. He's very artificial though.
>
>
>
> <p.144>
>
> In what way?
>
> Nabokov is a natural dandy on the grand international scale. I'm still a
provincial boy scared of being to nattily dressed. All writing is artificial
and Nabokov's artifacts are only contrived in the récit part. His dialogue
is always natural and masterly (when he wants it to be). "Pale Fire" is
only termed a novel because there's no other term for it. It's a masterly
literary artifact which is poem, commentary, casebook, allegory, sheer
structure. But I note that most people go back to reading the poem, not what
surrounds the poem. It's a fine poem, of course. Where Nabokov goes wrong, I
think, is in sometimes sounding old-fashioned - a matter of rhythm, as
thought Huysmans is to him a sound and modern writer whose tradition is
worthy to be worked in. John Updike sounds old-fashioned sometimes in the
same way - glorious vocabulary and imagery but a lack of muscle in the
rhythm.
>
>
>
> Does Nabokov rank at the top with Joyce?
>
> He won't go down in history as one of the greatest names. He's unworthy
to unlace Joyce's shoe.
>
> <...>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
From: "Charles Nicol" <ejnicol@isugw.indstate.edu>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (75
lines) ------------------
> I agree entirely with Mark Bennett. In 1962, reading "Clockwork Orange"
(all that primitive Russian slang!) or "Enderby" was not too different from
reading "Lolita" or "The Defense." That's as highly as I can praise any
modern writer.
>
> The "dandy" description of Nabokov is right on, considering that it comes
from an Englishman who would have been familiar with the kind of influence
Cambridge had on its students out at the time: remember Nabokov's own
descriptions of those days in "Glory" and his slightly later view of himself
as "Vladimirov" in "The Gift."
>
> Obviously the Joyce comparison is wildly exaggerated. We just need to
remember that Burgess wrote two books on Joyce, who was clearly the major
influence on him (Proust seems to be the equivalent modern for Nabokov), and
that in the interview Burgess had just been asked whether "Lolita" had
influenced him.
>
> Charles Nicol
>
> ===========
> >>> chtodel@cox.net 8/26/2003 6:41:52 PM >>>
> Message
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Bennett
> To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:13 PM
> Subject: RE: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
>
>
> Not much to react to, really. Burgess was, at least in print, generous
with his praise for fellow writers, and he frequently said and wrote kind
words about VN. I think AB's remark that "I meet him [VN] halfway in
certain temperamental endowments" is absolutely accurate, and I think anyone
familiar with the work of both men would agree. I suppose that some readers
of this list will take offense at AB's concluding remark that VN was
"unworthy to unlace Joyce's shoe," but I don't think this was meant to
disparage VN as much as it was intended to praise Joyce. AB held Joyce in
the absolute highest esteem, as did VN, and, after all, didn't VN say
something similar himself? (Something about his English being pat ball to
Joyce's championship game.) Forecasting literary reputations is an
uncertain enterprise at best, and who knows what writers from the 20th
century will continue to be read and admired in the coming years?
(Something the foxy VN anticipated in his famous "Fulm!
> erford" quip.) If anything, I think Joyce's reputation had diminished
significantly in recent years, at least since the "Scandal of Ulysses"
brouhaha has died down. (And Burgess' reputation took its own hit during
that little fiasco, as he was one of the champions of the discredited Gabler
revision.) Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 3:07 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Anthony Burgess on Nabokov
>
>
> EDNOTE. Reactions?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> From interview with Anthony Burgess // Paris review. 1973. Vol.14. 56
(Spring), pp.119-163.
>
>
>
> <p.143>
>
>
>
> Has Nabokov influenced your work at all? You've praised "Lolita" highly.
>
> Reading "Lolita" meant that I enjoyed using lists of things in the
"Right to an Answer". I've not been much influenced by Nabokov, nor do I
intend to be I was writing the way I write before I knew he existed. But
I've not been impressed so much by another writer in the last decade or so.
>
>
>
> Yet you've been called an "English Nabokov", probably because of the
cosmopolitan strain and verbal ingenuity in your writing.
>
> No influence. He's a Russian, I'm English. I meet him halfway in certain
temperamental endowments. He's very artificial though.
>
>
>
> <p.144>
>
> In what way?
>
> Nabokov is a natural dandy on the grand international scale. I'm still a
provincial boy scared of being to nattily dressed. All writing is artificial
and Nabokov's artifacts are only contrived in the récit part. His dialogue
is always natural and masterly (when he wants it to be). "Pale Fire" is
only termed a novel because there's no other term for it. It's a masterly
literary artifact which is poem, commentary, casebook, allegory, sheer
structure. But I note that most people go back to reading the poem, not what
surrounds the poem. It's a fine poem, of course. Where Nabokov goes wrong, I
think, is in sometimes sounding old-fashioned - a matter of rhythm, as
thought Huysmans is to him a sound and modern writer whose tradition is
worthy to be worked in. John Updike sounds old-fashioned sometimes in the
same way - glorious vocabulary and imagery but a lack of muscle in the
rhythm.
>
>
>
> Does Nabokov rank at the top with Joyce?
>
> He won't go down in history as one of the greatest names. He's unworthy
to unlace Joyce's shoe.
>
> <...>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>