Поиск по творчеству и критике
Cлова начинающиеся на букву "S"
Показаны лучшие 100 слов (из 2121).
Чтобы посмотреть все варианты, нажмите
Несколько случайно найденных страниц
Входимость: 1. Размер: 5кб.
Часть текста: interview, conducted by a docile anonym, is preserved in a fragmentary transcript dated October, 1972. There are two Russian books on which I would like you to comment. The first is Dr. Zhivago. I understand you never wished to review it? Some fifteen years ago, when the Soviets were hypocritically denouncing Pasternak's novel (with the object of increasing foreign sales, the results of which they would eventually pocket and spend on propaganda abroad); when the badgered and bewildered author was promoted by the American press to the rank of an iconic figure; and when his Zhivago vied with my Lalage for the top rungs of the best-seller's ladder; I had the occasion to answer a request for a review of the book from Robert Bingham of The Reporter, New York. And you refused? Oh, I did, The other day I found in my files a draft of that answer, dated at Goldwin Smith Hall, lthaca, N. Y., November 8, 1958. I told Bingham that there were several reasons preventing me from freely expressing my opinion in print. The obvious one was the fear of harming the author. Although I never had much influence as a critic, I could well imagine a pack of writers emulating my "eccentric" outspokenness and causing, in the long run, sales to drop, thus thwarting the Bolshevists in their hopes and making their ...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 63кб.
Часть текста: rooms is on the sixth floor, overlooking Lake Geneva, and the sounds of the lake are audible through the open doors of their small balcony. Since Mr. Nabokov does not like to talk off the cuff (or "Off the Nabocuff," as he said) no tape recorder was used. Mr. Nabokov ei! ther wrote out his answers to the questions or dictated them to the interviewer; in some instances, notes from the conversation were later recast as formal questions-and-answers. The interviewer was Nabokov's student at Cornell University in 1954, and the references are to Literature 311-312 (MWF, 12), a course on the Masterpieces of European Fiction (Jane Austen, Gogol, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Stevenson, Kafka, Joyce, and Proust). Its enrollment had reached four hundred by the time of Nabokov's resignation in 1959. The footnotes to the interview, except where indicated, are provided by the interviewer, Alfred Appel, Jr. For years bibliographers and literary journalists didn't know whether to group you under "Russian" or "American. "Now that you're living in Switzerland there seems to be complete agreement that you're American. Do you find this kind of distinction at all important regarding your identity as a writer? I have always maintained, even as a schoolboy in Russia, that the nationality of a worthwhile writer is of secondary importance. The more distinctive an insect's aspect, the less apt the taxonomist is to glance first of all at the locality label...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 53кб.
Часть текста: for January, 1964. Great trouble was taken on both sides to achieve the illusion of a spontaneous conversation. Actually, my contribution as printed conforms meticulously to the answers, every word of which I had written in longhand before having them typed for submission to Toffler when he came to Montreux in mid-March, 1963. The present text takes into account the order of my interviewer's questions as well as the fact that a couple of consecutive pages of my typescript were apparently lost in transit. Egreto perambis doribus! With the American publication of Lolita in 1958, your fame and fortune mushroomed almost overnight from high repute among the literary cognoscenti-- which you bad enjoyed for more than 30 years-- to both acclaim and abuse as the world-renowned author of a sensational bestseller. In the aftermath of this cause celebre, do you ever regret having written Lolita? On the contrary, I shudder retrospectively when I recall that there was a moment, in 1950, and again in 1951, when I was on the point of burning Humbert Humbert's little black diary. No, I shall never regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle-- its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look. Of course she completely eclipsed my other works-- at least those I wrote in English: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, my short stories, my book of recollections; but I cannot grudge her this. There is a queer, tender...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 20кб.
Часть текста: tape, is too colloquial and rambling to suit the scheme of the present book. As with Gogol and even James Agйe, there is occasionally confusion about the pronunciation of your last name. How does one pronounce it correctly? It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the "a" of the first syllable as a misprint and then tries to restore the symmetrical sequence by triplicating the "o"-- filling up the row of circles, so to speak, as in a game of crosses and naughts. No-bow-cough. How ugly, how wrong. Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals develops a bird-watcher's or caterpillar-picker's knack when scanning an article. But in my case I always get caught by the word "nobody" when capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle, as Russians also do. Na- bo -kov. A heavy open "o" as in "Knickerbocker". My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle...