Sandy Klein review by Denis
Donoghue on James Woods' "How Fiction Works":[...] Many of Mr. Wood's own sentences are nearly as good, as in
summing up a perceptive contrast between Nabokov and James in relation to detail
seen, he writes: But James is certainly not a Nabokovian writer; his notion of
what constitutes a detail is more various, more impalpable, and finally
more metaphysical than Nabokov's. James would probably argue that while we
should indeed try to be the kind of writer on whom nothing is lost, we
have no need to be the kind of writer on whom everything is
found.
J. Aisenberg: Nabokov and I often differ in literary
opinions, but I'm on his side about Henry James[...] Too much James makes
you want pull your hair out; Nabokov is a thousand times more economic as a
writer, more truthful about his character's motivations, and a thousand times
more imaginitive in his subject matter.[...] His "ambiguity" gives me a
headache. Thank god Nabokov's not a Jamesian writer.
JM: The sentence that struck me, in
the review was "we
have no need to be the kind of writer on whom everything is found" related to VN, since one of the elements of VN's magic lies in how
encompassing and "encompassionate" his is. Add to this
his assertion the kind of writer on whom nothing is
lost, applied to James ... It
is quite untrue, unless foggy prolixity ( borrowing JA's
adjectives) becomes a substitute for palpable loving
attention to detail, as we find in Nabokov. Btw, although I could not locate it in SO, I remember
that Nabokov actually praises, very economically, Henry
James' "turn" of phrase ( I wish I could recollect his comment more
precisely now.) I cannot see the point of comparing VN and Henry James in
the way it seems to have been done.