Subject
VNCollation#21
From
Date
Body
From: Suellen Stringer-Hye <StringerS@library.vanderbilt.edu>
Happy Birthday VN!
Just a single rose atop the every growing bouquet, this edition of the
VNcollation is dedicated to Vladimir Nabokov on the centennial of his birth.
Nabokov's friendship with William F. Buckley has always seemed to me
paradoxical. Buckley, a leading figure in conservative American
politics and thought represents for many, the antithesis of Nabokovian
perspectives, and yet the self-proclaimed liberal Nabokov's politics, to the
extent that
he entertained them, often appear "conservative" in the American context. On
February 1 Buckley, during an interview in which he was asked to
discuss the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, recalls a dinner discussion with
Nabokov:
TWENTY years ago I dined with Vladimir Nabokov, who told me that the
smile on his face traced to his having executed his "OSS" in his
writing session that afternoon. Of course I asked, What is an OSS?
"The obligatory sex scene," he explained patiently.
In January of this year, it was widely reported, that Paul Mellon, the
inventive benefactor to the nation's cultural life died. Nabokovians and
World Literature are indebted to him for the
founding of the Bollingen Series and the selection of Nabokov's translation
of Eugene Onegin for it.
From the February 3, NEW YORK TIMES, Obituary for Mellon:
He was curious about mysticism, so he studied with Carl Jung. He liked
deep, expansive books, so he began to publish the best he could
discover. Bollingen Series, his book venture, eventually put out 275
well-made volumes, among them the I Ching, Andre Malraux's "Museum
Without Walls," Ibn Khaldu^n's "The Muqadimah," Vladimir Nabokov's
translations from Pushkin, and Kenneth Clark's "The Nude."
As notes another obituary :
The Bollingen Foundation, which he established,
not only created the nation's top poetry prize but also published an
idiosyncratic array of elegantly designed books in a series that has
no parallel in this country. The series included the complete works of
Jung and Coleridge; a four-volume edition of Pushkin's ''Eugene
Onegin,'' translated into English and annotated by Vladimir Nabokov;
the ''I Ching''; Joseph Campbell's ''Hero With a Thousand Faces,'' and
scores of other studies in esthetics, cultural and art history,
mythology and religion.
Excerpts from Interviews
In the Winter 1999 issue of the Wilson Quarterly , a publication of
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Lewis M. Dabney
interview with Isiah Berlin is published. Conducted shortly before his death
in 1997, Berlin disccusses his friendship with Edmund Wilson who he found "a
greatly gifted and morally impressive man." Throughout the 1950s and 60s
the two saw each other frequently. During the interview Dabney asked
Berlin about Nabokov, Wilson, and Russian Literature
D: What do you think of Wilson's criticism of Russian literature?
Berlin: He had some inner feeling, some extraordinary understanding of
what the Russians meant. Sometimes he talked nonsense. For example,
the two pieces on Zhivago. The first article
D: Was wonderful. The second was lousy.
Berlin: Yes, all that philological stuff, he got from those two
ladies, those two White Russian ladies, whoever they were, egged him
on by saying "Ham-let," "Little Ham." He didn't really know the
language well. In the famous row with Nabokov he was wrong.
D: Yes, he was wrong about words. But did you think he was wrong about
Nabokov's translation? I thought the translation of Eugene Onegin was
"perversepedantic-impossible," as Edmund said.
Berlin: Absolutely right about it. It was an absolute monstrosity. He
was a moral being, Edmund was, whose approach to life was indelibly
moral, as is that of the Russian writers. Ultimately, the Russian
approach is the moral approach. Nabokov was purely aesthetic-Edmund
admired him, liked him, was amused by him. Don't think he mtwentieth-century
master of wit
Altered forever the
face of American
heterosexual
pedophile lit. . -RP (1994)
Billy Collins the highly regarded poet whose work has appeared in
Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper's, Paris
Review, and The New Yorker entitled his 1998 collection of poems
PICNIC, LIGHTNING. Here is the title poem, originally published in the
Paris Review
PICNIC, LIGHTNING
BILLY COLLINS
My very photogenic mother died in a
freak accident (picnic, lightning)
when I was three . . . -- Lolita
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore. This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next. Copyright
(c) Billy Collins. From The Paris
Review
Web links
Ken Lopez, a bookseller who specialiazes in 20th century literature often
carries Nabokov
First editions as well a other collectible works by Nabokov.
http://www.lopezbooks.com/94/94-7.html
Online excerpts from a cross section of Nabokov's works can be found at:
http://www.logos.it/literature/literatureenva.html
Vladimir Nabokov - Articles about butterflies
Vladimir Nabokov - Conversation Piece
Vladimir Nabokov - First Love
Vladimir Nabokov - Gods
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov - That in Aleppo Once
Vladimir Nabokov - The Assistant Producer
Vladimir Nabokov - The Dragon
Butterflies
Nabovov's fame as a lepidopterist, carries on, as if in a parallel universe.
The Karner blue, named by Nabokov after the now banished hamlet
in the Adirondack foothills just north of Saratoga Springs, New York ,was
officially placed on the
endangered species list in 1992. In the January 14, NEW YORK TIMES,
Joseph Berger; reports on one town's efforts to say this now endangered
butterfly.
Because of the butterflies "mystique', the town was able to gain support
for preservation of the butterfly's habitat and thus preserve some of
their own in the process.
The Karner blue, with characteristic iridescent blue wings, was named
after a now-vanished nearby hamlet by Vladimir Nabokov, a
lepidopterist as well as the author of ''Lolita.'' Like 11-year-olds
who will dine only on chicken nuggets and plain pasta, the Karner blue
is a picky eater. Its caterpillar savors only the leaf of the wild
blue lupine, a wildflower with violet-blue blossoms that thrives in
sunny meadows. The adult female, which has all of a one-inch wingspan,
lays its eggs on the blue lupine's leaves before it dies.
Ms. LaMontagne, who is executive director of what has become the
Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, estimates that $1.4 million has
come in from New York State, the conservancy and private donors for
land purchases. Five hundred acres have already been acquired; an
additional 615 acres are under negotiation.
An investment banker using the plight of the butterlflies to help
establish a nature Conservancy for the town said.
''If I didn't have the butterfly, 'I would have to invent
something like it.''
It is said that swarms of the butterfly, like great "clouds of blue
snowflakes" used to
appear across the Midwest.
Happy Birthday VN!
Just a single rose atop the every growing bouquet, this edition of the
VNcollation is dedicated to Vladimir Nabokov on the centennial of his birth.
Nabokov's friendship with William F. Buckley has always seemed to me
paradoxical. Buckley, a leading figure in conservative American
politics and thought represents for many, the antithesis of Nabokovian
perspectives, and yet the self-proclaimed liberal Nabokov's politics, to the
extent that
he entertained them, often appear "conservative" in the American context. On
February 1 Buckley, during an interview in which he was asked to
discuss the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, recalls a dinner discussion with
Nabokov:
TWENTY years ago I dined with Vladimir Nabokov, who told me that the
smile on his face traced to his having executed his "OSS" in his
writing session that afternoon. Of course I asked, What is an OSS?
"The obligatory sex scene," he explained patiently.
In January of this year, it was widely reported, that Paul Mellon, the
inventive benefactor to the nation's cultural life died. Nabokovians and
World Literature are indebted to him for the
founding of the Bollingen Series and the selection of Nabokov's translation
of Eugene Onegin for it.
From the February 3, NEW YORK TIMES, Obituary for Mellon:
He was curious about mysticism, so he studied with Carl Jung. He liked
deep, expansive books, so he began to publish the best he could
discover. Bollingen Series, his book venture, eventually put out 275
well-made volumes, among them the I Ching, Andre Malraux's "Museum
Without Walls," Ibn Khaldu^n's "The Muqadimah," Vladimir Nabokov's
translations from Pushkin, and Kenneth Clark's "The Nude."
As notes another obituary :
The Bollingen Foundation, which he established,
not only created the nation's top poetry prize but also published an
idiosyncratic array of elegantly designed books in a series that has
no parallel in this country. The series included the complete works of
Jung and Coleridge; a four-volume edition of Pushkin's ''Eugene
Onegin,'' translated into English and annotated by Vladimir Nabokov;
the ''I Ching''; Joseph Campbell's ''Hero With a Thousand Faces,'' and
scores of other studies in esthetics, cultural and art history,
mythology and religion.
Excerpts from Interviews
In the Winter 1999 issue of the Wilson Quarterly , a publication of
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Lewis M. Dabney
interview with Isiah Berlin is published. Conducted shortly before his death
in 1997, Berlin disccusses his friendship with Edmund Wilson who he found "a
greatly gifted and morally impressive man." Throughout the 1950s and 60s
the two saw each other frequently. During the interview Dabney asked
Berlin about Nabokov, Wilson, and Russian Literature
D: What do you think of Wilson's criticism of Russian literature?
Berlin: He had some inner feeling, some extraordinary understanding of
what the Russians meant. Sometimes he talked nonsense. For example,
the two pieces on Zhivago. The first article
D: Was wonderful. The second was lousy.
Berlin: Yes, all that philological stuff, he got from those two
ladies, those two White Russian ladies, whoever they were, egged him
on by saying "Ham-let," "Little Ham." He didn't really know the
language well. In the famous row with Nabokov he was wrong.
D: Yes, he was wrong about words. But did you think he was wrong about
Nabokov's translation? I thought the translation of Eugene Onegin was
"perversepedantic-impossible," as Edmund said.
Berlin: Absolutely right about it. It was an absolute monstrosity. He
was a moral being, Edmund was, whose approach to life was indelibly
moral, as is that of the Russian writers. Ultimately, the Russian
approach is the moral approach. Nabokov was purely aesthetic-Edmund
admired him, liked him, was amused by him. Don't think he mtwentieth-century
master of wit
Altered forever the
face of American
heterosexual
pedophile lit. . -RP (1994)
Billy Collins the highly regarded poet whose work has appeared in
Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper's, Paris
Review, and The New Yorker entitled his 1998 collection of poems
PICNIC, LIGHTNING. Here is the title poem, originally published in the
Paris Review
PICNIC, LIGHTNING
BILLY COLLINS
My very photogenic mother died in a
freak accident (picnic, lightning)
when I was three . . . -- Lolita
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore. This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next. Copyright
(c) Billy Collins. From The Paris
Review
Web links
Ken Lopez, a bookseller who specialiazes in 20th century literature often
carries Nabokov
First editions as well a other collectible works by Nabokov.
http://www.lopezbooks.com/94/94-7.html
Online excerpts from a cross section of Nabokov's works can be found at:
http://www.logos.it/literature/literatureenva.html
Vladimir Nabokov - Articles about butterflies
Vladimir Nabokov - Conversation Piece
Vladimir Nabokov - First Love
Vladimir Nabokov - Gods
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov - That in Aleppo Once
Vladimir Nabokov - The Assistant Producer
Vladimir Nabokov - The Dragon
Butterflies
Nabovov's fame as a lepidopterist, carries on, as if in a parallel universe.
The Karner blue, named by Nabokov after the now banished hamlet
in the Adirondack foothills just north of Saratoga Springs, New York ,was
officially placed on the
endangered species list in 1992. In the January 14, NEW YORK TIMES,
Joseph Berger; reports on one town's efforts to say this now endangered
butterfly.
Because of the butterflies "mystique', the town was able to gain support
for preservation of the butterfly's habitat and thus preserve some of
their own in the process.
The Karner blue, with characteristic iridescent blue wings, was named
after a now-vanished nearby hamlet by Vladimir Nabokov, a
lepidopterist as well as the author of ''Lolita.'' Like 11-year-olds
who will dine only on chicken nuggets and plain pasta, the Karner blue
is a picky eater. Its caterpillar savors only the leaf of the wild
blue lupine, a wildflower with violet-blue blossoms that thrives in
sunny meadows. The adult female, which has all of a one-inch wingspan,
lays its eggs on the blue lupine's leaves before it dies.
Ms. LaMontagne, who is executive director of what has become the
Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, estimates that $1.4 million has
come in from New York State, the conservancy and private donors for
land purchases. Five hundred acres have already been acquired; an
additional 615 acres are under negotiation.
An investment banker using the plight of the butterlflies to help
establish a nature Conservancy for the town said.
''If I didn't have the butterfly, 'I would have to invent
something like it.''
It is said that swarms of the butterfly, like great "clouds of blue
snowflakes" used to
appear across the Midwest.