Subject
Moon's homosexuality and back to Fitzgerald (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
Since I am, at least partially, responsible for bringing up the topic of
Nabokov's portrayal of homosexuals in his novels, I would like to bring
the discussion back to Fitzgerald and his portrayal of a corrupt Jew in
GATSBY. What has been said so far is that a) Some of Nabokov's relatives
and friends were gay -- well, some of Fitzgerald's friends were Jews b)
it's not the attitude of the author in the GLORY but of the character --
the same obviously can be said about GATSBY since it has a dramatized
narrator and the opinions are those expressed by Nick Carraway c) Moon is
a "symbol," in this case of "sterility" -- well, the Jewish mobster in
GATSBY is also a symbol of greed (which is as stereotypical for Jews as
"sterility" is for homosexuals.) What I am trying to say, I guess, is
that prejudice is prejudice, and one is not necessarily less grave than
the other, and I do not think we would go very far if we try to make
Nabokov's biases "understandable" and Fitzgerald's "unacceptable." And
Nabokov, actually, had other biases too. He did not care for women
writers pretty much as a "class" and was too ready to dismiss even such
good poets as Akhmatova and (at first) such good writers as Austen (and
even after he did reevaluate his opinion of her due to Wilson's urging, he
still compared her writing to "needlework.") Once we choose to
judge writers along these lines, I do not think it behooves us to be too
selective and respond only to those biases that affect or hurt us
personally.
Galya Diment
Since I am, at least partially, responsible for bringing up the topic of
Nabokov's portrayal of homosexuals in his novels, I would like to bring
the discussion back to Fitzgerald and his portrayal of a corrupt Jew in
GATSBY. What has been said so far is that a) Some of Nabokov's relatives
and friends were gay -- well, some of Fitzgerald's friends were Jews b)
it's not the attitude of the author in the GLORY but of the character --
the same obviously can be said about GATSBY since it has a dramatized
narrator and the opinions are those expressed by Nick Carraway c) Moon is
a "symbol," in this case of "sterility" -- well, the Jewish mobster in
GATSBY is also a symbol of greed (which is as stereotypical for Jews as
"sterility" is for homosexuals.) What I am trying to say, I guess, is
that prejudice is prejudice, and one is not necessarily less grave than
the other, and I do not think we would go very far if we try to make
Nabokov's biases "understandable" and Fitzgerald's "unacceptable." And
Nabokov, actually, had other biases too. He did not care for women
writers pretty much as a "class" and was too ready to dismiss even such
good poets as Akhmatova and (at first) such good writers as Austen (and
even after he did reevaluate his opinion of her due to Wilson's urging, he
still compared her writing to "needlework.") Once we choose to
judge writers along these lines, I do not think it behooves us to be too
selective and respond only to those biases that affect or hurt us
personally.
Galya Diment