Subject
Fw: == Zadie Smith on PNIN ==
From
Date
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Alphonse Vinh" <AVinh@npr.org>
To: "'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:21 AM
Subject: RE: == Zadie Smith on PNIN ==
> This message was originally submitted by AVinh@NPR.ORG to the NABOKV-L
list at
> LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a
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> command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or
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> the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be
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> the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If
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> other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will
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> to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to
contact the
> author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your
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> program.
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (54
lines) ------------------
> I enjoyed that interview with Zadie Smith, a very talented young British
> author. Incidentally, Zadie Smith is enrolled as a student at Harvard this
> year. She's doing things backwards. Publish bestselling prize winner first
> and then go to school. I wonder if anyone has shown her 8 Craigie Circle
yet
> as well as the Blues encased for immortality in the Harvard Museum's
> Entomological Collection.
>
> Alphonse Vinh
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 12:47 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: == Zadie Smith on PNIN ==
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Thomas Bolt -- b0sh0tmalt" <bolt@tbolt.com>
> >
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (32
> lines) ------------------
> > The author of the novel WHITE TEETH, Zadie Smith,
> > comments on PNIN .
> >
> >
> > THE NEW YORKER:
> > Let's talk about Finch herself. How did you first imagine
> > her?
> >
> > ZADIE SMITH:
> > For a while, I've dreamt of writing some shadow of a type,
> > like Updike's Bech or Nabokov's Pnin, and I gave that
> > another shot with Finch, but my instincts are all the wrong
> > way round. It's something I'm going to have to learn very
> > slowly. The joy of Pnin is that to everyone within the story
> > he has no more dimension than a joke; at best, he is a silly
> > anecdote colleagues tell each other ("You must meet this
> > fellow Pnin"). But it's Nabokov's genius to give the man
> > his whole humanity, to delineate his sorrows with a
> > morally immaculate comic seriousness ("I haf nofing left,
> > nofing, nofing!"), and to draw away from the farcical at
> > the last minute, as with the moment with the bowl that
> > doesn't break-my favorite episode in modern fiction.
> > With me, I get as far as the joke bit and then fall fatally at
> > the whole humanity part. It would be lovely to keep
> > working away at someone like Finch until you could make
> > her live.
> >
> > This appears midway through an interview:
> > http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?021223on_onlineonly03
> >
> >
> >
> >
From: "Alphonse Vinh" <AVinh@npr.org>
To: "'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:21 AM
Subject: RE: == Zadie Smith on PNIN ==
> This message was originally submitted by AVinh@NPR.ORG to the NABOKV-L
list at
> LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU. If you simply forward it back to the list, using a
> command that generates "Resent-" fields (ask your local user support or
consult
> the documentation of your mail program if in doubt), it will be
distributed and
> the explanations you are now reading will be removed automatically. If
on the
> other hand you edit the contributions you receive into a digest, you will
have
> to remove this paragraph manually. Finally, you should be able to
contact the
> author of this message by using the normal "reply" function of your
> program.
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (54
lines) ------------------
> I enjoyed that interview with Zadie Smith, a very talented young British
> author. Incidentally, Zadie Smith is enrolled as a student at Harvard this
> year. She's doing things backwards. Publish bestselling prize winner first
> and then go to school. I wonder if anyone has shown her 8 Craigie Circle
yet
> as well as the Blues encased for immortality in the Harvard Museum's
> Entomological Collection.
>
> Alphonse Vinh
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 12:47 PM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fw: == Zadie Smith on PNIN ==
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Thomas Bolt -- b0sh0tmalt" <bolt@tbolt.com>
> >
> > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (32
> lines) ------------------
> > The author of the novel WHITE TEETH, Zadie Smith,
> > comments on PNIN .
> >
> >
> > THE NEW YORKER:
> > Let's talk about Finch herself. How did you first imagine
> > her?
> >
> > ZADIE SMITH:
> > For a while, I've dreamt of writing some shadow of a type,
> > like Updike's Bech or Nabokov's Pnin, and I gave that
> > another shot with Finch, but my instincts are all the wrong
> > way round. It's something I'm going to have to learn very
> > slowly. The joy of Pnin is that to everyone within the story
> > he has no more dimension than a joke; at best, he is a silly
> > anecdote colleagues tell each other ("You must meet this
> > fellow Pnin"). But it's Nabokov's genius to give the man
> > his whole humanity, to delineate his sorrows with a
> > morally immaculate comic seriousness ("I haf nofing left,
> > nofing, nofing!"), and to draw away from the farcical at
> > the last minute, as with the moment with the bowl that
> > doesn't break-my favorite episode in modern fiction.
> > With me, I get as far as the joke bit and then fall fatally at
> > the whole humanity part. It would be lovely to keep
> > working away at someone like Finch until you could make
> > her live.
> >
> > This appears midway through an interview:
> > http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?021223on_onlineonly03
> >
> >
> >
> >