Subject
"Laughter in the dark" in the Latest Nature Conservancy magazine.
Date
Body
The January-February 2000 issue of Nature Conservancy ("NC") magazine
contains a letter from a woman who was offended, and also offended (she
says) on behalf of her young son, that NC quoted the passage from PNIN
concerning the "shed rubber" scaring up a cloud of Karner Blues. She
appeared to be intimating (as the NC editor noted with his subtitle
introducing the letter-- "Missed Quote") that Nabokov was littering the
ground with prophylactics. The editor explained in his note that the
reference was to "boots" or "overshoes" which were probably not "litter"
since they would most likely be replaced on the foot after their temporary
"shedding". He also speculated that its likely Nabokov was against
littering. I replied with an email letter giving two very concise
quotations of Nabokov condemning littering and got a response almost
immediately from the NC editor that its likely that this further
"vindication of Nabokov's ethics" will be run in their next issue. That was
pretty funny and appears to strengthen the comments by all biographers of
Nabokov that the sector of the public only identifying Nabokov with erotic
subjects is apt to read that kind of thing into any mention of him, etc.
Kurt Johnson
contains a letter from a woman who was offended, and also offended (she
says) on behalf of her young son, that NC quoted the passage from PNIN
concerning the "shed rubber" scaring up a cloud of Karner Blues. She
appeared to be intimating (as the NC editor noted with his subtitle
introducing the letter-- "Missed Quote") that Nabokov was littering the
ground with prophylactics. The editor explained in his note that the
reference was to "boots" or "overshoes" which were probably not "litter"
since they would most likely be replaced on the foot after their temporary
"shedding". He also speculated that its likely Nabokov was against
littering. I replied with an email letter giving two very concise
quotations of Nabokov condemning littering and got a response almost
immediately from the NC editor that its likely that this further
"vindication of Nabokov's ethics" will be run in their next issue. That was
pretty funny and appears to strengthen the comments by all biographers of
Nabokov that the sector of the public only identifying Nabokov with erotic
subjects is apt to read that kind of thing into any mention of him, etc.
Kurt Johnson