To Sandy Drescher

 

I would not take too much notice of what Zadie Smith says about VN. It’s abject nonsense. She might as well have said that Nabokov’s brain is the shape of a hat stand.

 

As I posted here some time ago, I went to a 'lecture’ Zadie Smith gave on Nabokov at the Royal Society of Literature and it was a shambles…

 

Tina Colquhoun

 

 

 

 

To the List:
This is aninteresting article. Smith's view of fiction seems antithetical to that of VNN.
But my question is:

Main Entry: 2helter-skelter
Function: noun
1:a disorderly confusion :TURMOIL
2British :a spiral slide around a tower at an amusement park

Which does she mean?

Sandy Drescher



On Tuesday, January 23, 2007, at 05:08 PM, Sandy P. Klein wrote:

 

<image.tiff>

 
http://januarymagazine.com/2007/01/fail-better.html
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

 

Fail Better

<image.tiff>ì... somewhere between a criticís necessary superficiality and a writerís natural dishonesty, the truth of how we judge literary success or failure is lost.î

 

In a two article series for The Guardian, Zadie Smith (White Teeth, On Beauty) doesnít pull any literary punches. Smithís lengthy, two-part piece is wonderful, managing as it does to be both accessible (ìThatís how young readers are, too, when they start out. They are doubters and seekers.î) and urbane (She quotes both Kierkegaard and Nobokov while somehow never losing her of-the-reading-masses tone).

I have said that when I open a book I feel the shape of another human beingís brain. To me, Nabokovís brain is shaped like a helter-skelter. George Eliotís is like one of those pans for sifting gold. Austenís resembles one of the glass flowers you find in Harvardís Natural History Museum.


Thereís so much here that is terrific, the temptation is just to quote and quote and quote: most of what Smith shares in the space is worth repeating. But Iíll save both of us the effort: part one is here, put two is here. Savor it for yourself.