Subject
German Review of the Nabokov Web-Site ZEMBLA
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Scott Denham, the Associate Editor of NABOKOV STUDIES,
sends this report on ZEMBLA http:
//www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nsintro.htm which appeared in the
distinguished German newspaper _Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung_.
The site, an affiliate of the International Nabokov Society, was designed
and is edited by Jeff Edmunds with the generous support of the Penn State
Library system. Our congratulations to Jeff and to ZEMBLA!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: scott.denham@rzhub.uni-wuerzburg.de
----------------
To add to Gennady Barabtarlo's recent message, here's a bit more
information on the Zembla review.
Germany's daily paper of record, The _Frankfurter Allegemeine
Zeitung_, published a highly complimentary review of Zembla
[http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nsintro.htm] on 19
April 1997 (p. 35). Thomas Hettche's "Im Schmetterlingsnetz" [In the
Butterfly Net] calls the website "a colorful, indeed cleverly
arranged collection" of materials and hyperlinks and praises there Dieter
Zimmer's actualized bibliography, the many photos, the links
to the discussion list, information about _Nabokov Studies_, and the
guide to archival materials. For the forgetful reader Hettche
situates Nabokov briefly in the context of twentieth-century
modernism, and points out the available links to Kafka, Joyce,
Proust, and Bely; he is especially pleased to find that a link to a
Finnish butterfly archive is also available on Zembla. Hettche
reports with interest on the various Lolita materials available on
Zembla and linked to it, and then waxes poetic: "What is in the net
here is a little bit like the beautiful and at the same time banal,
paradisically red apples that Lolita gives to Humbert Humbert one
Sunday morning. For in contrast to libraries, which generally don't
leave the researcher alone with long rows of obscure folios [at
least in Europe, where there are rarely open stacks-SD], the search
engines create a kind of intimacy. The user interface of one's own
computer has become so private and even an extension of one's own
skin that the data appearing on it can be moving." Such as in the
relationship to Lolita, we find. The intimacy of the net and its
connections also reminds Hettche of Borges's Library of Babel and
lets him affirm Nabokov as an ancestor of the brave new world of
intimacy and endless connections we experience on the net.
It would be interesting to find out whether the review has generated
more traffic on the Zembla website.
Scott Denham
Davidson College
sends this report on ZEMBLA http:
//www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nsintro.htm which appeared in the
distinguished German newspaper _Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung_.
The site, an affiliate of the International Nabokov Society, was designed
and is edited by Jeff Edmunds with the generous support of the Penn State
Library system. Our congratulations to Jeff and to ZEMBLA!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: scott.denham@rzhub.uni-wuerzburg.de
----------------
To add to Gennady Barabtarlo's recent message, here's a bit more
information on the Zembla review.
Germany's daily paper of record, The _Frankfurter Allegemeine
Zeitung_, published a highly complimentary review of Zembla
[http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nsintro.htm] on 19
April 1997 (p. 35). Thomas Hettche's "Im Schmetterlingsnetz" [In the
Butterfly Net] calls the website "a colorful, indeed cleverly
arranged collection" of materials and hyperlinks and praises there Dieter
Zimmer's actualized bibliography, the many photos, the links
to the discussion list, information about _Nabokov Studies_, and the
guide to archival materials. For the forgetful reader Hettche
situates Nabokov briefly in the context of twentieth-century
modernism, and points out the available links to Kafka, Joyce,
Proust, and Bely; he is especially pleased to find that a link to a
Finnish butterfly archive is also available on Zembla. Hettche
reports with interest on the various Lolita materials available on
Zembla and linked to it, and then waxes poetic: "What is in the net
here is a little bit like the beautiful and at the same time banal,
paradisically red apples that Lolita gives to Humbert Humbert one
Sunday morning. For in contrast to libraries, which generally don't
leave the researcher alone with long rows of obscure folios [at
least in Europe, where there are rarely open stacks-SD], the search
engines create a kind of intimacy. The user interface of one's own
computer has become so private and even an extension of one's own
skin that the data appearing on it can be moving." Such as in the
relationship to Lolita, we find. The intimacy of the net and its
connections also reminds Hettche of Borges's Library of Babel and
lets him affirm Nabokov as an ancestor of the brave new world of
intimacy and endless connections we experience on the net.
It would be interesting to find out whether the review has generated
more traffic on the Zembla website.
Scott Denham
Davidson College