When Nabokov dismisses Faulkner and others of the truly great you have
to
wonder if he ever read say "That Evening Sun," whether the magnolia and
slavery ship culture that title comes from lies outside his frame of
reference. It's bracing and it's fun when he machineguns a literary
reputation, particularly on the occasions when one happens to agree with
him, but in the long run it is a cheap thrill and maybe we Listservers
would have to admit it is not our hero's most endearing trait.
[[EDComment: Personally, and in principle, I agree with this sentiment,
although maybe "cheap thrill" is overkill. In many cases, it seems
that VN is arguing more with popular perceptions than with actual
authors. He knew, certainly, that his words would convince almost
no-one: after all, they are, for the most part, not accompanied by a
detailed refutation of the standard view, but limit themselves to pithy
dismissals. I suspect there are a few components to this practice of
his: 1) authentic disagreement with the general appraisal. 2) an
authentic antipathy to "herd" behaviors that blindly follow
intellectual fashions 3) the identification of a stylistic or
ideological niche: no-one else was doing this sort of Titan-bashing.
To some extent, he was also continuing the brutally honest tradition of
his friend Yulii Aikhenvald, whose highly critical "silhouette" of
Belinsky caused an uproar in the 1910s (cf. in this regard Fyodor's
Chernyshevski book in The Gift). On whether the trait is
endearing: I think all, or nearly all, would agree that in the main, we
turn to Nabokov for his artistry, for his scholarship, and for his
flashes of extroardinary insight--not for his Strong Opinions about his
less preferred predecessors. -SB]]