EDITOR's NOTE. Brian Boyd's biannual "Annotations to ADA" in THE NABOKOVIAN are always a pleasure to read and, indeed, essential for the ADA buff. (Also to be noted here is the ADA annotations of the Kyoto Reading Circle that publishes its findings  [in English] in KRUG, the publication of the Nabokov Sociey of Japan.) The latest installment (The Nabokovian #49) covers chapter 20 of ADA' s Part I.
 
The lines to be discussed (page 124, lines 21-22) describe Van coming down the stairs  to breakfast after the Night of the Burning Barn. The staircase is lined with Veen family portraits: "he hurried down, past a pleased looking Prince Zemski and a grim Vincent Veen, Bishop of Baltimore and Como." Boyd convincingly explains why Prince Zemski might well look pleased and goes to write "Vincent Veen is otherwise unknown, and presumably looks 'grim' in a clergyman's judgement upon Van's sexual activities with Ada." (TN 39). Boyd is even more right about the Bishop's disapproval than he realizes.
 
Bishop Vincent Veen is a blend of two sanctimonius American religious figures that were omnipresent in the 1950s. Norman Vincent Peale and Bishop Fulton Sheen. No American in the Eisenhower Fifties could remain innocent of these figures who were the founding figures of TV evangelism. Even I, a college student militantly indifferent to religion, was familiar with their images and voices. Nabokov who was a keen student of American popular culture of the fifties must have found them vastly entertaining. Below are some cribbed notes on  Bishop Vincent Veen's prototypes.
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Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most influential clergymen in the United States during the 20th-century. ... Peale's simple, optimistic, and dynamic sermons, in which he offered a positive outlook on modern living brought increasing numbers of parishioners and increasing fame to Peale. His sermons were regularly broadcast, first on radio and later on television. In addition, Peale published a weekly newsletter for businessmen, Guideposts, which reached two million subscribers at its apex. Peale also published several best-selling books, including The Power of Positive Thinking which was published in 1952 and has sold nearly 20 million copies and  in 41 different languages. With the exception of the Bible, from 1952-1956  his The Power of Positive Thinking was the best-selling book in America. For 54 years, Peale’s weekly radio program, “The Art of Living,” was on the air. There was also a weekly TV show.His sermons were said to be mailed to over 750,000 people per month and in 1964 a movie was made of his life entitled “One Man’s Way. He was the author of 46 inspirational books including “The Art of Living,” “A Guide to Confident Living,” “The Tough-Minded Optimist,” and “Inspiring Messages for Daily Living.” A biography is aptly entitled God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking. He is regarded an the forefather of the motivation and self-esteem movements.  His theology was liberal and he co-founded a post-Freudian, Jungian-leaning psychiatric clinic in NY. Died: 12/24/93.

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Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

 

Educator, author, radio and television apologist, archbishop.═ He was born Peter Sheen (May 8, 1895) the first of four sons to Newton Morris Sheen and Delia Fulton Sheen on the second floor of the family hardware store, Elpaso, Illinois.═ He died in New York City on Dec. 9, 1979.

 

He was ordained to the priesthood, (Sept. 20, 1919)  and earned his Ph.D. at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (1923), one of the foremost centers of scholastic studies in the Catholic world. In 1925 Sheen received the Agrege en Philosophe for his doctoral dissertation, ⌠God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy: A Critical Study in Light of the Philosophy of St. Thomas. ═While teaching dogmatic theology at St. Edmund's College, Ware, England, he met the renowned apologist G.K. Chesterton, whose weekly radio broadcast over the BBC inspired Sheen's later work as the feature speaker on the NBC broadcast ⌠The Catholic Hour (1952).═ His dissertation with Chesterton's introduction was acclaimed to be a masterpiece in which ⌠The Catholic Church comes forward as the one and only real champion of Reason and earned Sheen the distinction of being the first American to receive the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy.═ Sheen set the pattern for what followed in his own career in what he saw as a task to make St. Thomas functional, not for school, but for the world┘ a remedy against the anarchy of ideas, riot of philosophical systems and breakdown of spiritual forces.

 

 

Preacher and Convert Maker-

 

His intellectual stature remains arguable, but the success of his apologetical career is indisputable.═ The contribution of Archbishop Sheen to the Catholic world and the general American public was incalculable.═ His preaching career included: annual Lenten homilist at St. Patrick's Cathedral (1930-1952) and Paulist Church in New York City, preacher at summer conferences at Cambridge, England; Westminster Cathedral in London (1925-31); Cardinal Spellman's 1948 Pacific Tour; and countless retreats for priests and religious congregations, which by his own report, was his most gratifying experiences and occupied his agenda to the very end of his life.

 

His no fewer than 92 books were invariably repetitive reworkings of his public addresses and were designed to foster one's spiritual growth rather than to deepen intellectual enrichment. His book Peace of Soul, rose to sixth place in New York Times best seller list and was considered his finest next to Preface to Religion (1946).═ His most financially successful was Life of Christ, which was based upon 15 addresses given on  his program "The Catholic Hour."

 

 

Television Personality-

Sheen spoke on the first televised religious service on Easter Sunday, 1940.═ But it was the 129 broadcasts of "Life is Worth Living" on ABC Network and Admiral Corporation on the Dumont that established Sheen as the best known Catholic priest in 1950's America.═ For many he represented the movement of Catholicism into mainstream American Life.═ His talks redefined the Church within larger society by telling stories of Catholics in Terms of their own heritage.═ His telecasts had ecumenical appeal to non-Catholic audiences.═ He emphasized the importance of reason in sorting out problems of the day especially of American confrontation of Communism.═ The infusion of anti-Communism into his talks recast its social meaning as a spiritual component of the postwar religious revival of the 1950's America.═ He forty-two programs he treated evils of atheistic Communism, yet at the same time he argued the need for love of the Russian people.═ His program on The Death of Stalin aired live one week before Stalin's death (March 5, 1953), which drew enormous media attention and clinched Sheen's role as the premier Catholic ant-Communist.═ He also attacked Freudian psychology.

  

At the end of the twentieth century, historians increasingly note the prophetic quality of Sheen's ecumenical ambition.═ To be sure, no other American Roman Catholic churchperson has matched the popularity and influence of this mediagenic bishop whose apologetic touched the lives of millions of Catholics and non-Catholics.

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