Subject
VVN: too many words? (fwd)
Date
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From: Alexander Justice <jahvah@empirenet.com>
>It is the only novel I can think of where I can turn to any page
> at random and find a word I don't know the meaning of. The guy
> had obviously swallowed a dictionary before writing it. English
> isn't Nabokov's native language, so perhaps he was unaware that
> he was using so many obscure words; OTOH perhaps he did it
> deliberately "look, I've got a big vocabulary". In either case
> the book is crap.
This reminds me of the scene in Amadeus in which the Austrian Emperor
finds "too many notes" in the work Mozart has just presented him. :)
While a wide range of words appears in VVN's writing, I have yet to find
an obscure one, and out of the four novels I've just read, can only
recall one word which was new to me. One ought to keep in mind that
English has a rather large number of words by comparison with other
languages; also, the expulsion of classical languages, if not all other
languages, from most students' curricula leaves much of our vocabulary to
fall on deaf ears. Those who fear not to recognize words (neologophobia?)
would do well to avoid Shakespeare and Joyce among others. IMHO, VVN
handles English better than most native writers, and with a happier
imagination.
Alexander Justice * jahvah@empirenet.com * Alta California
"Resolved: to regard humankind with benevolence and detachment, like
an elderly host whose young and indulged wife has asked a lot of people
to the house whose names he does not know." --Evelyn Waugh
>It is the only novel I can think of where I can turn to any page
> at random and find a word I don't know the meaning of. The guy
> had obviously swallowed a dictionary before writing it. English
> isn't Nabokov's native language, so perhaps he was unaware that
> he was using so many obscure words; OTOH perhaps he did it
> deliberately "look, I've got a big vocabulary". In either case
> the book is crap.
This reminds me of the scene in Amadeus in which the Austrian Emperor
finds "too many notes" in the work Mozart has just presented him. :)
While a wide range of words appears in VVN's writing, I have yet to find
an obscure one, and out of the four novels I've just read, can only
recall one word which was new to me. One ought to keep in mind that
English has a rather large number of words by comparison with other
languages; also, the expulsion of classical languages, if not all other
languages, from most students' curricula leaves much of our vocabulary to
fall on deaf ears. Those who fear not to recognize words (neologophobia?)
would do well to avoid Shakespeare and Joyce among others. IMHO, VVN
handles English better than most native writers, and with a happier
imagination.
Alexander Justice * jahvah@empirenet.com * Alta California
"Resolved: to regard humankind with benevolence and detachment, like
an elderly host whose young and indulged wife has asked a lot of people
to the house whose names he does not know." --Evelyn Waugh