Subject
TEXNABSTRACTS
Date
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EDITOR's NOTE: Below is an abstract of one of the papers read at the April
Nabokov conference at Texas Tech.
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NABOKOV AND THE SIXTIES
D. Barton Johnson
The Sixties was a period of intense political and cultural tur-
bulence in the U.S: the election of Kennedy and his assassination; the
Cuban missile crisis; Johnson and the evergrowing involvement in Viet-
nam; the anti-war movement; the peaking of "flower power" in 1967
Haight-Ashbury; the sexual and hallucinogenic revolutions; the assas-
sinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Woodstock, and the
moon landing. All to the music of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Beatles,
and the Stones.
The cultural scene was equally turbulent. Not since the Twenties
had American writing displayed such vigor. Roughly speakingly, there
were three streams of serious writing; the mainstream represented by
Updike and Bellow; the "Beats," those grandchildren of Henry Miller,--
Ginsburg, Kerouac, Kesey, and Burroughs; and what we now call the
postmodernists--Barth, Coover, Hawkes, Pynchon, et al. The Sixties was
also the Nabokov decade. _Lolita_ introduced it; _Pale Fire_ provided one
of its most critically acclaimed novels; and _Ada_ brought the decade to
a close. Bracketed by these new novels, a dozen translations and
reprints also appeared. How many authors get to publish the formidable
output of a lifetime in one decade?
My paper offers a general survey of Nabokov's impact upon American
literature of the Sixties and of his reaction to that writing. It also
remarks the role of his work in the "literary theory wars." I also offer
some speculation as to why Nabokov, who termed himself "as American as
April in Arizona," left America in 1959 planning a short stay in Europe and
never returned. The turbulent America of the Sixties was a far different
country from the one that had offered Nabokov a new home in the forties and
fifties. Perhaps, like the Russia of his childhood, it had become another
Paradise Lost.
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618
Nabokov conference at Texas Tech.
--------------------------------------------------------------
NABOKOV AND THE SIXTIES
D. Barton Johnson
The Sixties was a period of intense political and cultural tur-
bulence in the U.S: the election of Kennedy and his assassination; the
Cuban missile crisis; Johnson and the evergrowing involvement in Viet-
nam; the anti-war movement; the peaking of "flower power" in 1967
Haight-Ashbury; the sexual and hallucinogenic revolutions; the assas-
sinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Woodstock, and the
moon landing. All to the music of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Beatles,
and the Stones.
The cultural scene was equally turbulent. Not since the Twenties
had American writing displayed such vigor. Roughly speakingly, there
were three streams of serious writing; the mainstream represented by
Updike and Bellow; the "Beats," those grandchildren of Henry Miller,--
Ginsburg, Kerouac, Kesey, and Burroughs; and what we now call the
postmodernists--Barth, Coover, Hawkes, Pynchon, et al. The Sixties was
also the Nabokov decade. _Lolita_ introduced it; _Pale Fire_ provided one
of its most critically acclaimed novels; and _Ada_ brought the decade to
a close. Bracketed by these new novels, a dozen translations and
reprints also appeared. How many authors get to publish the formidable
output of a lifetime in one decade?
My paper offers a general survey of Nabokov's impact upon American
literature of the Sixties and of his reaction to that writing. It also
remarks the role of his work in the "literary theory wars." I also offer
some speculation as to why Nabokov, who termed himself "as American as
April in Arizona," left America in 1959 planning a short stay in Europe and
never returned. The turbulent America of the Sixties was a far different
country from the one that had offered Nabokov a new home in the forties and
fifties. Perhaps, like the Russia of his childhood, it had become another
Paradise Lost.
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618