Re: great minds think alike
Miranda Poynton (polyglot@tartarus.uwa.edu.au)
Fri, 18 Sep 1998 09:53:58 +0800 (WST)
Matt, I, too, am finger-deep in my first Nabokov! Lolita, "Lo-lee-ta".
I'm surprised at how compellingly readble it is.
Miranda
On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu wrote:
> i must admit now that i am fairly ignorant of nabokov's work, and that despair
> is the first i've read by him (and i've not yet finished that, so no fair
> spoiling anything for me). perhaps that is why i was struck by that bit in
> the introduction, i just hadn't expected a lot of similarities between this
> russian guy i'd never read and an american of whom i've read a great deal.
>
> and i think Jim may have misinterpretted what nabokov was saying in that
> section of the introduction. Jim seems to have taken it to mean that nabokov
> forbade anyone from interpreting the novel in any way he had not
> predetermined. (Jim, please correct me if i'm wrong, as i'm sure you will;))
> i, however, take it to mean that nabokov's intent in writing the story was not
> to illuminate the world with some bit of esoteric wisdom attainable only by
> some Freudian with a knowledge of German Impressionist writers. he's saying
> that writing is, in the end, an entirely selfish act. the fact that others
> may benefit in some way from this act do not change the motivation in the
> slightest. and i feel that salinger would agree with this sentiment. that's
> why we can all accept that salinger has continued to write without
> publishing--his writing is and always has been selfish. we the Freudian
> public wish it were otherwise, but alas, it is not ours to decide.
>
> matt
>
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>