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Fw: Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
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----- Original Message -----
From: Akiko Nakata
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
Indeed, Nabokov would have loved the beautiful scene you refer to, and the other Nabokovian mirror images in the novel. The fire overlapping the eyes of Yoko reflected in the glass foreshadows a catastrophic fire in the snow at the end of the novel--that seems to me very Nabokovian too. Kawabata would have been delighted with the waxwing line, even though he could not appreciate the novel. Nostalgia, especially for his childhood (no Arcadian) or play in a novel is not so crucial for him as for VN.
Another coincidence--they were born in 1899, as you know.
----- Original Message -----
From: Arthur Glass
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 4:31 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
I was thinking particularly of__Snow Country__, which was originally published, if memory serves, in 1938. The copyright date of Seidensticker's English translation is 1956, so a direct 'influence'--a word VN rightly detested--is unlikely. What seems particularly 'Nabokovian' to me is the scene in Ch. 1 where Shimamura, the aesthete-protagonist, sees the interior of the train car in which he is riding, and particularly the face of the beautiful Yoko, reflected onto the landscape. Reminiscent of the opening of the poem in __Pale Fire__.
I'll settle for a happy coincidence between writers whose fidelity to the contours of sensory awareness, including the tricks it is wont to play, is part of their genius.
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 12:17 AM
Subject: Fw: Nabokov and Kawabata
----- Original Message -----
From: Akiko Nakata
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Dear Arthur Glass,
I also doubt that VN was interested in Japanese literature. Most of his references to Japan are negative.
I have no idea whether or not Kawabata read Nabokov, but I think he possibly did--at least *Lolita*. The Japanese translation of *Lolita* was published in 1959 creating a sensation, and the theme of pedophilia must be attractive to Kawabata. He could read the novel also in English, if he would. Some of his characters are pedophiliac, as
Григорий Чхартишвили ( Grigorii Chkhartishvili) finds a HH-to-be in the nice young protagonist of "The Dancing Girl of Izu." It might be interesting to compare *Lolita* and "House of the Sleeping Beauties" by means of necrophilia. I am sorry, but I cannot be much help. I think Yuichi Isahaya, who kindly sent me the short essay by Чхартишвили, probably knows better.
Best wishes,
Akiko Nakata
(Join us for: http://www10.plala.or.jp/transparentt/happy.html)