Subject
Addendum "Cloud, Castle, Lake" (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. In this and his following posting Dieter Zimmer continues
his comments on Roy' Johnson's discussion of "Cloud, Castle, Lake."
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From: Dieter E. Zimmer <100126.2576@compuserve.com>
> [and I wonder as an aside if there are any examples in his
work of Germans who are sympathetically portrayed] Roy Johnson
Hardly, though he seems to have thought highly of some of the old lepidopterists
(not of Staudinger). It is obvious that Nabokov fervently disliked Germany and
the Germans, for a number of reasons, the strongest of which were uncannily
substantiated by the Nazi regime towards the end of his fifteen years' stay in
Berlin. (During WW II, he wished Germany would be eradicated down to its last
beer-mug and forget-me-not.) He was aware, though, that his early dislike was in
part irrational, as witnessed by the scene in "Dar" when Fyodor projects
everything he hates about Germans into a stranger sitting across from him in the
streetcar--until he suddenly discovers that the man is a Russian, and in a
moment the emotion he had worked up in himself makes a 180 degree turn.
Dieter E.Zimmer, Erikastrasse 81a, D-20251 Hamburg, Germany
Phone +49-40-488140, Fax +49-40-4606129
E-mail 100126.2576@compuserve com
his comments on Roy' Johnson's discussion of "Cloud, Castle, Lake."
----------
From: Dieter E. Zimmer <100126.2576@compuserve.com>
> [and I wonder as an aside if there are any examples in his
work of Germans who are sympathetically portrayed] Roy Johnson
Hardly, though he seems to have thought highly of some of the old lepidopterists
(not of Staudinger). It is obvious that Nabokov fervently disliked Germany and
the Germans, for a number of reasons, the strongest of which were uncannily
substantiated by the Nazi regime towards the end of his fifteen years' stay in
Berlin. (During WW II, he wished Germany would be eradicated down to its last
beer-mug and forget-me-not.) He was aware, though, that his early dislike was in
part irrational, as witnessed by the scene in "Dar" when Fyodor projects
everything he hates about Germans into a stranger sitting across from him in the
streetcar--until he suddenly discovers that the man is a Russian, and in a
moment the emotion he had worked up in himself makes a 180 degree turn.
Dieter E.Zimmer, Erikastrasse 81a, D-20251 Hamburg, Germany
Phone +49-40-488140, Fax +49-40-4606129
E-mail 100126.2576@compuserve com