Subject
Reply from DN re VN's views of woman Re: Johnson-Wendel: "Time &
Ebb" (fwd)
Ebb" (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Dmitri Nabokov (via Sandy Pallot Klein <taxi@flinet.com>)
comments on Roy Johnson's interpretation of "Time & Ebb." Also included
below is Sylvia Weiser Wendel's response to Roy Johson's remarks.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 18:15:04 -0400
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Reply from DN re VN's views of woman Re: Johnson-Wendel: "Time & Ebb" (fwd)
I'm sure Roy Johnson is an earnest scholar and means well.
But as a son who had the rare fortune of frank conversation
with his father on many occasions and subjects, I have no idea
of what the hell he means by "dodgy", expressed or implied.
Nor would I find misogynous one who both privately and publicly
credited his wife as muse and greatest helpmeet.
Perhaps, as Sylvia Wendel suggests, some edition of
the _P.C. Times_ might be a better forum for this commentator.
DN
= = = = = =
Sylvia Weiser Wendel comments on:
>
> In a message dated 5/14/97 10:38:49 PM, Roy Johnson wrote:
>
> >VN's rather dodgy [and no doubt unconscious] views of Woman.
> >
> >... and if anyone else wishes to run after the
> >misogyny hare
>
> Well, no, I don't.
>
> Who defines "dodgy"? Is "dodgy" bad?? Are we in the business of deciding
> good-or-bad, and modifying our tastes thereto? I am completely puzzled by
> this urge to cloak what I thought was art in the drab fashions of
> contemporary neo-puritan platitudes. We don't need male scholars to tell us
> who is whateverist. If women aren't bothered by alleged "sexism", then leave
> it alone!! This kind of solemn labeling _for your own good_ is worse than
> the leering, panting sexism -- it's android Big Brotherism, and I say it's
> spinach, and I say the hell with it.
>
> Meanwhile, I am still waiting for someone to disprove my claim that "Time &
> Ebb" is not only an effective _story_, but a great one. Let me set a
> parameter -- "great" within the context not only of VN stories, but of
> comparable modern writers, Joyce, Updike, Bellow, for example. I don't
> believe he should be lumped in with the 19th century writers mentioned in Dr.
> Johnson's note (would you place Keats next to Pope, or next to Shelley?).
>
> "Time & Ebb" captures that ache in the American heart, that lyrical nostalgia
> for times lost and irretrievable, which we see every day in the chopped-up,
> formulaic, prepackaged nonsense that passes for history in our splendid
> media, but which remains apart from all that and as much a part of our
> permanent landscape as baseball, drive-throughs, and hero worship (c.f., all
> that parodic reverence of Barrett). In numbingly simple terms, we [generic
> Americans] found this country. We loved this country. We wrecked this
> country, or allowed it to be wrecked while we did other things. But we still
> love it, and we love that which is gone more than we love what is here now.
> There's an element of guilt involved -- particularly for the narrator of
> "T&E", who as a scientist bears no little responsibility for the destruction
> of the world he so lovingly sets forth. What does "toying with animal
> tissues" entail anyway? What have been the consequences of our narr.'s work?
> What does he know about the revelations concerning "the true nature of
> electricity"?
>
> VN doesn't tell us, does he, and there lies the story's greatness. The
> narr.'s nostalgia lies uneasily atop a bed of guilt -- for we are all guilty,
> in growing up, becoming adults, working in family and/or career, of
> destroying the worlds of our youth. Everyone of us, in one way or another,
> has broken the heart of a "Professor Andrews" somewhere. Everyone of us has
> mocked or ignored an unfulfilled "Richard Sinatra," , even if
> unintentionally.
>
> Gosh, this seems an obvious parallel to "The Dead," a similar elegy as much
> national as personal: efficient, bustling, optimistic Gabriel Conroy has the
> wind (and the lust) knocked out of him by his wife's moody nostalgia. Gretta
> Conroy cries as much for her lost youth as for poor dead Michael Furey, and
> she certainly bears an element of guilt about his death, doesn't she. Yet it
> is also Ireland she mourns for (no Hopkins intended) -- western, rural,
> boggy Ireland, lost to her personally thanks to what might be called the
> "yuppie lifestyle" of sophisticated Dublin. She wants to go home again, but
> of course, one can't. She is the Professor Andrews of this story, if you
> will, and Gabriel is the narrator as scientist, who understands what has
> transpired, who has brought about the change (he married Gretta), and who
> must live with the consequences. Now, since every freshman knows "The Dead"
> is a great story -- and "Time and Ebb" may be compared to "The Dead" -- does
> that make "T&E" as great? Not necessarily. But then, not necessarily not,
> either.
>
> This is what one seeks in fiction -- release, relief, understanding,
> admiration of another's style and insight, words to fit this "gentle,
> trustful, dreaming country," even if, like so many H.H.s., we have all
> defiled it with our "trail[s] of slime." When I want feeble quasi-leftist
> propaganda, I will read the L.A. Times, thank you.
>
> Proustian under the palm trees,
> Sylvia
>
> Sylvia Weiser Wendel
comments on Roy Johnson's interpretation of "Time & Ebb." Also included
below is Sylvia Weiser Wendel's response to Roy Johson's remarks.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 18:15:04 -0400
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Reply from DN re VN's views of woman Re: Johnson-Wendel: "Time & Ebb" (fwd)
I'm sure Roy Johnson is an earnest scholar and means well.
But as a son who had the rare fortune of frank conversation
with his father on many occasions and subjects, I have no idea
of what the hell he means by "dodgy", expressed or implied.
Nor would I find misogynous one who both privately and publicly
credited his wife as muse and greatest helpmeet.
Perhaps, as Sylvia Wendel suggests, some edition of
the _P.C. Times_ might be a better forum for this commentator.
DN
= = = = = =
Sylvia Weiser Wendel comments on:
>
> In a message dated 5/14/97 10:38:49 PM, Roy Johnson wrote:
>
> >VN's rather dodgy [and no doubt unconscious] views of Woman.
> >
> >... and if anyone else wishes to run after the
> >misogyny hare
>
> Well, no, I don't.
>
> Who defines "dodgy"? Is "dodgy" bad?? Are we in the business of deciding
> good-or-bad, and modifying our tastes thereto? I am completely puzzled by
> this urge to cloak what I thought was art in the drab fashions of
> contemporary neo-puritan platitudes. We don't need male scholars to tell us
> who is whateverist. If women aren't bothered by alleged "sexism", then leave
> it alone!! This kind of solemn labeling _for your own good_ is worse than
> the leering, panting sexism -- it's android Big Brotherism, and I say it's
> spinach, and I say the hell with it.
>
> Meanwhile, I am still waiting for someone to disprove my claim that "Time &
> Ebb" is not only an effective _story_, but a great one. Let me set a
> parameter -- "great" within the context not only of VN stories, but of
> comparable modern writers, Joyce, Updike, Bellow, for example. I don't
> believe he should be lumped in with the 19th century writers mentioned in Dr.
> Johnson's note (would you place Keats next to Pope, or next to Shelley?).
>
> "Time & Ebb" captures that ache in the American heart, that lyrical nostalgia
> for times lost and irretrievable, which we see every day in the chopped-up,
> formulaic, prepackaged nonsense that passes for history in our splendid
> media, but which remains apart from all that and as much a part of our
> permanent landscape as baseball, drive-throughs, and hero worship (c.f., all
> that parodic reverence of Barrett). In numbingly simple terms, we [generic
> Americans] found this country. We loved this country. We wrecked this
> country, or allowed it to be wrecked while we did other things. But we still
> love it, and we love that which is gone more than we love what is here now.
> There's an element of guilt involved -- particularly for the narrator of
> "T&E", who as a scientist bears no little responsibility for the destruction
> of the world he so lovingly sets forth. What does "toying with animal
> tissues" entail anyway? What have been the consequences of our narr.'s work?
> What does he know about the revelations concerning "the true nature of
> electricity"?
>
> VN doesn't tell us, does he, and there lies the story's greatness. The
> narr.'s nostalgia lies uneasily atop a bed of guilt -- for we are all guilty,
> in growing up, becoming adults, working in family and/or career, of
> destroying the worlds of our youth. Everyone of us, in one way or another,
> has broken the heart of a "Professor Andrews" somewhere. Everyone of us has
> mocked or ignored an unfulfilled "Richard Sinatra," , even if
> unintentionally.
>
> Gosh, this seems an obvious parallel to "The Dead," a similar elegy as much
> national as personal: efficient, bustling, optimistic Gabriel Conroy has the
> wind (and the lust) knocked out of him by his wife's moody nostalgia. Gretta
> Conroy cries as much for her lost youth as for poor dead Michael Furey, and
> she certainly bears an element of guilt about his death, doesn't she. Yet it
> is also Ireland she mourns for (no Hopkins intended) -- western, rural,
> boggy Ireland, lost to her personally thanks to what might be called the
> "yuppie lifestyle" of sophisticated Dublin. She wants to go home again, but
> of course, one can't. She is the Professor Andrews of this story, if you
> will, and Gabriel is the narrator as scientist, who understands what has
> transpired, who has brought about the change (he married Gretta), and who
> must live with the consequences. Now, since every freshman knows "The Dead"
> is a great story -- and "Time and Ebb" may be compared to "The Dead" -- does
> that make "T&E" as great? Not necessarily. But then, not necessarily not,
> either.
>
> This is what one seeks in fiction -- release, relief, understanding,
> admiration of another's style and insight, words to fit this "gentle,
> trustful, dreaming country," even if, like so many H.H.s., we have all
> defiled it with our "trail[s] of slime." When I want feeble quasi-leftist
> propaganda, I will read the L.A. Times, thank you.
>
> Proustian under the palm trees,
> Sylvia
>
> Sylvia Weiser Wendel