Subject
Nabokov and Stendhal (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Matt Morris <mmorris@netunlimited.net>
A fairly subjective, general question, but an important one it seems to
me--I have always understood why Nabokov didn't like Faulkner (the reason:
Wilson gave him the _wrong_ Faulkner to read--not Light In August, but his
two masterpieces, Sound And Fury and As I Lay Dying). VN's distaste for
the weak and crude LIA is perfectly consistent with his aesthetic
principles that he stuck by throughout his career.
But in the case of Henri Beyle/Stendhal, I am somewhat puzzled, and I am
starting to suspect VN was too. VN's blatant, conflicted, allusions to
Chartreuse in Transparent Things even suggest a late ambivalence.
Re-reading Red And the Black, it strikes me that there are few books from
the 19th-century that are so completely Nabokovian, and yet decades before
VN. See for example the anagrammatic name in the beginning of the book,
when Julien reads about a famous criminal case that parallels his own. Or
the complex detachment S. creates between character and author. Or, for
that matter, the formal beauty of the entire book. In the case of Julien
Sorel's story, I think our Idol erred, seriously, and I say this as a
great lover of Nabokov's books.
True the carve of Stendhal's weapon (to paraphrase VN on Dickens) is
(deliberately) crude. But any fan of Ulysses should have been able to see
through these tricks, instantly. I don't understand Nabokov's
incomprehensible incomprehension, again to paraphrase the still-great but
not as powerful VN, concerning this "question-mark man" (as Nietzsche
called Stendhal), and his first-rate, archetectonically-perfect novel.
And again, I say this as a lowly admirer of Nabokov's genius--I am a good
reader, but a pathetic writer.
Help me on this one, because I love Nabokov, especially his Chartreuse-ian
Ada. But I worship, absolutely adore, Stendhal, and wonder why Nabokov
didn't too. His crack about Le Rouge being a book for chambermaids to me
seems like saying that Ulysses is a book for drunken Irishmen only....
----------
A fairly subjective, general question, but an important one it seems to
me--I have always understood why Nabokov didn't like Faulkner (the reason:
Wilson gave him the _wrong_ Faulkner to read--not Light In August, but his
two masterpieces, Sound And Fury and As I Lay Dying). VN's distaste for
the weak and crude LIA is perfectly consistent with his aesthetic
principles that he stuck by throughout his career.
But in the case of Henri Beyle/Stendhal, I am somewhat puzzled, and I am
starting to suspect VN was too. VN's blatant, conflicted, allusions to
Chartreuse in Transparent Things even suggest a late ambivalence.
Re-reading Red And the Black, it strikes me that there are few books from
the 19th-century that are so completely Nabokovian, and yet decades before
VN. See for example the anagrammatic name in the beginning of the book,
when Julien reads about a famous criminal case that parallels his own. Or
the complex detachment S. creates between character and author. Or, for
that matter, the formal beauty of the entire book. In the case of Julien
Sorel's story, I think our Idol erred, seriously, and I say this as a
great lover of Nabokov's books.
True the carve of Stendhal's weapon (to paraphrase VN on Dickens) is
(deliberately) crude. But any fan of Ulysses should have been able to see
through these tricks, instantly. I don't understand Nabokov's
incomprehensible incomprehension, again to paraphrase the still-great but
not as powerful VN, concerning this "question-mark man" (as Nietzsche
called Stendhal), and his first-rate, archetectonically-perfect novel.
And again, I say this as a lowly admirer of Nabokov's genius--I am a good
reader, but a pathetic writer.
Help me on this one, because I love Nabokov, especially his Chartreuse-ian
Ada. But I worship, absolutely adore, Stendhal, and wonder why Nabokov
didn't too. His crack about Le Rouge being a book for chambermaids to me
seems like saying that Ulysses is a book for drunken Irishmen only....
----------