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Nabokov in "Lumber" (fwd)
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From: Wayne Daniels <wdaniels@gwmail.mtrl.toronto.on.ca>
Nicholson Baker wrote a wonderfully unclassifiable literary ramble
titled "Lumber" which appears in the collection, _The Size of
Thoughts_ (New York : Vintage, 1996). The sole unifying element in
the piece is the author's search for occurences in literature of the
term "lumber" used in the British sense of useless junk or clutter,
the contents of a "lumber room". Baker is inclined to irony, to
understate matters, but his remarks on Nabokov (pp. 265-274) are
intriguing nevertheless. A link is made between Kinbote (whose name,
it is suggested, is an anagram of "bodkin") and Lewis Theobald, that
subtle scholar who was ill advised enough to annoy Pope. Links are
also suggested with Warburton and Richard Bentley. Finally there are
some remarks on Nabokov and Housman which are perhaps usefully
suggestive.
I suspect some or all of the above is familiar to the more
thorough-going scholars on this list, but I post this for the blokes
like myself, for whom it was not.
Cheers.
Wayne Daniels
Metro Toronto Reference Library
wdaniels@gwmail.mtrl.toronto.on.ca
Nicholson Baker wrote a wonderfully unclassifiable literary ramble
titled "Lumber" which appears in the collection, _The Size of
Thoughts_ (New York : Vintage, 1996). The sole unifying element in
the piece is the author's search for occurences in literature of the
term "lumber" used in the British sense of useless junk or clutter,
the contents of a "lumber room". Baker is inclined to irony, to
understate matters, but his remarks on Nabokov (pp. 265-274) are
intriguing nevertheless. A link is made between Kinbote (whose name,
it is suggested, is an anagram of "bodkin") and Lewis Theobald, that
subtle scholar who was ill advised enough to annoy Pope. Links are
also suggested with Warburton and Richard Bentley. Finally there are
some remarks on Nabokov and Housman which are perhaps usefully
suggestive.
I suspect some or all of the above is familiar to the more
thorough-going scholars on this list, but I post this for the blokes
like myself, for whom it was not.
Cheers.
Wayne Daniels
Metro Toronto Reference Library
wdaniels@gwmail.mtrl.toronto.on.ca