{"id":424072,"date":"2019-08-13T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/?p=424072"},"modified":"2019-08-13T13:23:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T17:23:30","slug":"nabokov-proofing-nafisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2019\/08\/13\/nabokov-proofing-nafisi\/","title":{"rendered":"Reread, Rewrite, Repeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some years ago,<\/span>\u00a0I was invited on an editorial trip to Buenos Aires, where we were given a walking tour of the more literary areas of the city, including a bar where Polish ex-pat Witold Gombrowicz used to hang out.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The tour guide told us a story about how Gombrowicz\u00a0<\/span>hated\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Borges and would frequently, drunkenly, rant a<\/span>bout just how crappy Borges was as a writer.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne time, when he was railing against Borges\u2019s latest book, a drinking compatriot asked him if he had\u00a0<\/span>read the book. \u2018What?! Why would I waste my time on trash like that?\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This anecdote came to mind tonight, as I was reading the opening chapter to Azar Nafisi\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>That Other World<\/span><\/i><\/a>: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile<\/span><\/i>, translated from the Persian by Lotfali Khonji.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At a party for his students, he railed against Laurence Olivier\u2019s film adaptation of\u00a0<\/span>Hamlet<\/span><\/i>. One student asked whether he had actually seen the film, and he replied: \u201cOf course I haven\u2019t seen the film. Do you think I would waste my time seeing a film as bad as I have described?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s not actually in there, I can imagine a scene in Rodrigo Fres\u00e1n<\/span>\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Dreamed Part\u00a0<\/span><\/i>in which the Author\u2014after his attempt to merge with the so-called God particle at CERN in hopes of transforming himself into something otherworldly, capable of rewriting all of reality over and over again\u00a0<\/span>to fit his aesthetic desires like some sort of nutty-professor version of David Haller\u2014<\/span>is lying in bed, unable to sleep, thus unable to dream, thus unable to write or live. (It\u2019s all a bit complicated\u2014just go with me for a moment.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can imagine him lying there, delivering a most scathing\u00a0<\/span>indictment of cell phones, Twitter, and our tendency to write more than we read (if we assume tweeting is \u201cwriting\u201d and reading is something other than emoji-interpretation)\u00a0<\/span>all while taking a massive shit on some second-rate contemporary writer. Like his\u00a0<\/span>archnemesis,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>IKEA.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When he finished his diatribe, slightly out of breath, internally pleased with a few of his\u00a0<\/span>darts, well aware that most of the audience was silently tweeting his comments out to the world with hashtags like #LOLAngryWriter or #<\/span>OldAndOutofTouch<\/span>\u00a0when someone asks him about IKEA\u2019s latest best-seller<\/span>: Has he read it?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not. Why waste my time on a book like that when I could spend time with Nabokov\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Transparent Things<\/span><\/i>, the perfect book to read, reread, or re-reread while you\u2019re here in Switzerland.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nafisi\u2019s book is broken up into seven chapters,\u00a0<\/span>each addressing one or more of Nabokov’s works, organized under a particular <\/span>theme. Like \u201cCruelty:\u00a0<\/span>Pnin<\/span><\/i>.\u201d Or \u201cHeaven and Hell:\u00a0<\/span>Ada or Ardor.<\/span><\/i>\u201d Most of the big books are all in here\u2014<\/span>Lolita\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and\u00a0<\/span>Pale Fire\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Gift<\/span><\/i>\u2014but there\u2019s also\u00a0<\/span>Look at the\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Harelquins<\/span><\/i>!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0A<\/span> late work that I\u2019m guessing some readers haven\u2019t really ever heard of, and a book that I bought at Fres\u00e1n<\/span>\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0urging when he was here in Rochester. I had read the title, but nothing more than that.\u00a0<\/span>As much as I consider myself a Nabokov fan, there are a few books I just never got around to. (And a number that I read when I was too young, too silly.)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rodrigo sold me on this book\u2014which I still haven\u2019t read, but will before the summer is over\u2014by showing me the\u00a0<\/span>\u201cOther Books by the Narrator\u201d page where, instead of Nabokov\u2019s actual titles, you find this:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Russian:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamara\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1925<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pawn Takes Queen\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1927<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Plenilune<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1929<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Camera Lucida\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(Slaughter in the Sun) 1931<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Red Top Hat\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1934<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Dare\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1950<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In English:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

See under Real\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1939<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Esmeralda and Her\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Parandrus<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1941<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Olga\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Repnin<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1946<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Exile from\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Mayda<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1947<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A Kingdom by the Sea\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1962<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ardis\u00a0<\/span><\/i>1970<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A\u00a0<\/span>Nabokov-phile<\/span>\u00a0will see through this. (<\/span>Tamara\u00a0<\/span><\/i>=\u00a0<\/span>Mary<\/span><\/i>;\u00a0<\/span>Camera Lucida\u00a0<\/span><\/i>=\u00a0<\/span>The Eye<\/span><\/i>;\u00a0<\/span>Ardis\u00a0<\/span><\/i>=\u00a0<\/span>Ada<\/span><\/i>;\u00a0<\/span>Exile from\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Mayda<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>=\u00a0<\/span>Pale Fire.<\/span><\/i>) What a very\u00a0<\/span>Nabokovian<\/span>\u00a0game!\u00a0<\/span>According to Rodrigo\u2014and the author in\u00a0<\/span>The Dreamed Part<\/span><\/i>\u2014it\u2019s basically Nabokov\u2019s parody of what a\u00a0<\/span>Nabokovian<\/span>\u00a0novel\u00a0<\/span>is.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>He\u2019s re-writing himself. His books. His go-to anecdotes and narrative tricks. (Not that Nabokov really repeated himself all that often. It\u2019s one of the things that makes him such a l<\/span>asting\u00a0<\/span>author,\u00a0<\/span>so rewarding to reread.<\/span>)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m definitely going to use this anecdote from chapter one of Nafisi\u2019s book\u2014<\/span>\u201cLife:\u00a0<\/span>Speak, Memory<\/span><\/i>\u201d\u2014which might be common knowledge, but which I hadn\u2019t come across before now:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During a lecture in Minnesota, when he had forgotten his notes and was forced to ad-lib, he gave his students a quiz on the approaches that distinguish a good reader. There are ten definitions, and the students had to choose a combination of four:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a01.) <\/span>The reader should belong to a book club.<\/span><\/p>\n

2.) The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero or heroine.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3.) The reader should concentrate on the social-economic angle.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4.) The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5.) The reader should have seen the book in a movie.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6.) The reader should be a budding author.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

7.) The reader should have imagination.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

8.) The reader should have memory.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

9.) The reader should have a dictionary.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

10.) The reader should have some artistic sense. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Nabokov\u2019s view, the readers should have imagination, memory, a dictionary, and an artistic sense.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

100% agree.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Due to a quirk of how we produced Fres\u00e1n<\/span>\u2019s<\/span> follow-up to the Best Translated Book Award-winning <\/span>The Invented Part<\/span><\/i>, I ended up spending between 7 and 8 hours a day every day last week proofing this forthcoming monster. A mere 543 pages in 6\u201d x 9\u201d format (probably something like 225,000 words?), <\/span>The Dreamed Part<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>isn\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>a book you can skim. It\u2019s a book that\u2014if you\u2019re going to proof it properly\u2014you need to pay attention\u00a0<\/span>constantly<\/span><\/i>. Not just to the individual sentences (paraphrasing here: \u201cIt\u2019s like Nabokov said, \u2018what\u2019s wrong with making a reader reread a sentence or two?\u2019\u201d) but to\u00a0<\/span>all the references.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>So many names! Rodrigo\u2019s mind is\u00a0<\/span>encyclopedic<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>in a way that makes the Internet look like an<\/span>\u00a0ABC book. And taking it upon myself to do the best job possible\u2014when you find a typo, don\u2019t tell me; I need to live with the common proofreader delusion that I\u2019m really good at this, remembering everything I found and never knowing about everything I missed\u2014<\/span>I looked up\u00a0<\/span>everything<\/span><\/i>. Every name. Every word that looked like it\u00a0<\/span>might\u00a0<\/span><\/i>be misspelled. (Spoiler: After an hour of proofing,\u00a0<\/span>every single word looks misspelled.<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I hunted down every quote that I could find. All the bits from\u00a0<\/span>Wuthering<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Heights\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(this section is AMAZING)<\/span>, the lines from Susan Sontag\u2019s intro to\u00a0<\/span>Halldor<\/span>\u00a0Laxness\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Under the\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Glacier<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0the parts referencing\u00a0<\/span>Nabokov\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Transparent Things.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, actually, on Saturday, I decided to celebrate my proofing accomplishment (<\/span>shhhhhhh<\/span><\/i>!!! I missed NOTHING<\/span><\/i>) by taking a 45 mile\u00a0<\/span>round-trip bike ride to a brewery in Brockport, NY (you think Rochester is the boonies?), where had a couple beers and just read Transparent Things<\/em> from cover to cover. <\/span>What a book!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to Nafisi:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nabokov\u2019s last novels were received more tepidly than the others, and\u00a0<\/span>Transparent Things<\/span><\/i>, which came out in 1972, baffled many critics, among them John Updike. In Nabokov\u2019s opinion, \u201cAmongst the reviewers several careful readers have published some beautiful stuff about it. Yet neither they nor, of course, the common \u2018<\/span>criticule<\/span>\u2019 discerned the structural knot of the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Look at the Harlequins!\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Was published two years later and was similarly greeted with review that were split between his keen readers and \u201chacks\u201d who found it less taxing than\u00a0<\/span>Ada\u00a0<\/span><\/i>or\u00a0<\/span>Transparent Things<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s pause for a second on \u201c<\/span>criticule<\/span>.\u201d It\u2019s like the BuzzWire\u00a0<\/span>Listmaker<\/span>\u00a0of the 1970s!\u00a0<\/span>Criticule<\/span><\/i>. So dismissive in such a\u00a0<\/span>dickish<\/span>, erudite way.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In terms of it\u2019s basic story [SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SPOILER-AVERSE<\/span>\u00a0WHO ARE ACTUALLY PLANNING TO ACTUALLY READ THIS NOVEL]\u00a0<\/span>Transparent Things<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>isn\u2019t necessarily convoluted.\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s about Hugh Person returning to Switzerland for the fourth time in his life\u2014and first since his wife died. We read about his earlier trips\u2014the first in which his dad passed away, the second for his work as an editor in which he meets his future wife\u2014and then\u00a0<\/span>find out that, off-screen, he strangled his wife in his sleep. (His somnambulism was established early on in the book.) Also off-screen: He goes to jail for murder but is exonerated and spends a number of years in an asylum. He no longer works as an editor.\u00a0<\/span>The big-name author he worked with most\u2014a very pretentious character who Nabokov has way too much fun with, having him title his book <\/span>Tralatitions<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and embody the truly\u00a0<\/span>pervy<\/span>\u00a0part of Humbert Humbert\u2014passes away.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All that is straightforward. But the \u201cstructural knot,\u201d at least as\u00a0<\/span>far as The Author in\u00a0<\/span>The Dreamed Part\u00a0<\/span><\/i>articulates it, is in the narration.\u00a0<\/span>Who is\/are the voices at the beginning and end who are telling this story? <\/span><\/i>Are they ghosts from beyond? The author? A\u00a0<\/span>collective of writerly spirits?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When\u00a0<\/span>we\u00a0<\/span><\/i>concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment. Transparent things, through which the past shines!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Man-made objects, or natural ones, inert in themselves but much used by careless life (you are thinking, and quite rightly so, of a hillside stone over which a multitude of small animals have scurried in the course of incalculable<\/span>\u00a0seasons) are particularly difficult to keep in surface focus: novices fall through the surface, humming happily to themselves, and are soon reveling with childish abandon in the story of this stone, of that heath. I shall explain. A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film. Otherwise the inexperienced miracle-worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish. More in a moment.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That \u201cmore in a moment\u201d is the most Fres\u00e1n<\/span>-esque<\/span>\u00a0sentence I\u2019ve ever read in a\u00a0<\/span>non-Fres\u00e1n<\/span>\u00a0book.\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m so glad that I read this book.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rodrigo Fres\u00e1n<\/span>. Azar Nafisi. Dubravka Ugresic. Lila\u00a0<\/span>Azam<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Zanganeh<\/span>. All writers I really like who have, more or less recently, written books that involved Nabokov in one way or another.\u00a0<\/span>Which makes me want to a) read their books (which I have, minus Nafisi\u2019s), and b) read all the\u00a0<\/span>weird\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Nabokov books that aren\u2019t taught in World Lit 101.\u00a0<\/span>And the ones that are known, but aren\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>Lolita\u00a0<\/span><\/i>or\u00a0<\/span>Pnin<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>or\u00a0<\/span>Pale Fire<\/span><\/i>. Books like\u00a0<\/span>Bend Sinister\u00a0<\/span><\/i>that I read while working at Quail Ridge Books, right after finishing\u00a0<\/span>The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(Which I read in concordance with\u00a0<\/span>The Real Life of Alejandro\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Mayta<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>by Mario Vargas Llosa as some sort of self-imposed nerdy compare-and-contrast exercise.)\u00a0<\/span>I want to reread those,\u00a0<\/span>because rereading is sort of like rewriting\u2014I have the chance to take a set of memories and rework them in ways that are more visual,\u00a0<\/span>richer, more complete and\u00a0<\/span>detailed and fulfilling.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This weekend, I want to go on a 50+ mile bike ride.\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s part of my personal mid-life health crisis. I had to stop running for a while because I fucked up\u00a0<\/span>my knee. Again. It\u2019s always cyclical. Feel so good, run\u00a0<\/span>20 miles a few weeks in a row, dive into a pool, feel a pinch, limp for days. Get strong. Run again. Hope that it will help with the extra weight.\u00a0<\/span>Push yourself. Break down. Try again.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the rest of the summer, I decided to bike to break my cycle<\/span>. (Ugh. #PunEverything?<\/span>)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>My knee never hurts after riding, no matter how far I go, no matter how far I push myself, and this will sort of kind of keep me sort of kind of in shape?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To give me a bit of added motivation, I’ve been biking to breweries around the area for a beer and lunch, and to read a bit before biking the return route. Thankfully, there are breweries\u00a0everywhere<\/a> <\/em>now. And they all put a lot of effort into their name and brand and design. I go to Triphammer Bierwerks<\/a> (yeah, I know) a lot because I like their logo. And then there’s Three Heads<\/a>, which is right around the corner from my house and has always embraced a stoner aesthetic. (Their flagship beer is “The Kind,” because obviously.) Seven Story<\/a> plays off of the 70-foot-high embankment that was created for the Erie Canal AND because every work of art follows one of seven plots.<\/p>\n

And then, there’s Rising Storm, which is 26 miles away (perfect for my upcoming ride) and sounds like something that you’d either see on a college basketball warm-up jersey or at a white supremacist rally.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a joke I\u2019ve told four times today, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll repeat it to unwitting <\/span>interlocutors after my bike ride, when I\u2019m telling and retelling and reimagining my Rising Storm experiences as if life is fiction, as if life is\u00a0<\/span>nothing more than a narrative to be shaped and shared with that exclusive group of compatriots who have: imagination, memory, a dictionary, and an artistic sense.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t that the way to be human? The idea of “being <\/span>inhuman” is captivating to me, and I always think being inhuman as reacting instinctually, <\/span>absorbing what happens to you without reflection, without letting these experiences be adopted through our imagination.<\/span> We become more human the more we retell, reread, rethink, rework. Editing is a way of expanding one\u2019s consciousness. <\/span>Rereading is the only way to really start to understand everything that\u2019s not<\/span>\u00a0on the surface.\u00a0<\/span>As is telling the same joke 40 times until you figure out the right comedic beats. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If I were The Author from\u00a0<\/span>The Invented Part\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and\u00a0<\/span>The Dreamed Part<\/span><\/i>, I would probably work in a bit about\u00a0<\/span>how the appeal of\u00a0<\/span>our \u201cGolden Age of Television\u201d is\u00a0<\/span>partially due to the fact that no one wants to reread anymore. Not only do a lot of people listen to podcasts at time-and-a-half to get through them quicker, but they also watch these “prestige” shows on slow fast-forward, with the subtitles on.<\/span>\u00a0CRAM IT IN YOUR BRAIN. Details and depth don\u2019t matter; everything is a box to be ticked, a product to have consumed.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Relive, rework, reread, rewrite. It\u2019s all in the retelling.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And a genius like Fres\u00e1n<\/span>\/<\/span>Nafizi<\/span>\/Nabokov\/Ugresic can transform that clich\u00e9 into something layered and beautiful, written in a way that makes you reflect, that makes you more human.<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited to revisit Nabokov through Nafisi\u2019s lens. <\/span>She\u2019s an incredible thinker, and I love the perspective that she lays out in the intro as to why Nabokov:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Th<\/span>is was why my students ignored most socially committed novels but love Nabokov\u2014<\/span>not because they were not politically committed, but because Nabokov\u2019s fiction\u00a0<\/span>did not merely question politics of the day but went far beyond that to put on trial all forms of tyrannical mind<\/span>set. [. . .]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Worse still, the individuality that Nabokov and so many great American writers had cherished here has been vanishing alongside the public spaces that created bridges between our private and public selves\u2014connecting us to others, helping in the creation of communities that offer a sense of belonging and loyalty without compromising individual integrity. That individualism has been gradually replaced by the solipsism that Nabokov so beautifully evoked in his best work, as the\u00a0<\/span>archvillain<\/span>\u00a0of his stories.\u00a0<\/span>Surely \u201cabsurd,\u201d with all its tragic conno<\/span>tations, is an apt term to apply to an age identified with Donald Trump. [. . .]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In book after book,\u00a0<\/span>Pnin<\/span><\/i>, Lolita, Invitation to a Beheading, Bend Sinister, Pale Fire,\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and\u00a0<\/span>Ada<\/span><\/i>, the villains\u00a0<\/span>are the solipsists, those who for one reason or another are too self-involved to hear, see, or feel empathy for others, those who impose not just their will but their prefabricated images and ideas upon real living human beings.\u00a0<\/span>These new and compelling monsters are among Nabokov\u2019s great contributions to modern fiction. [. . .]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If only there were more hours in the day, weeks left in the summer before the new semester. Although if I time this right, maybe I can finally undertake Ada or Ardor\u00a0<\/em>over winter break. Seems like the right book to bring to Nine Maidens Brewing<\/a> . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years ago,\u00a0I was invited on an editorial trip to Buenos Aires, where we were given a walking tour of the more literary areas of the city, including a bar where Polish ex-pat Witold Gombrowicz used to hang out.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The tour guide told us a story about how Gombrowicz\u00a0hated\u00a0Borges and would frequently, drunkenly, rant about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":424082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[69452,8776,2006],"class_list":["post-424072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-azar-nafisi","tag-rodrigo-fresan","tag-vladimir-nabokov"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424072"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424202,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424072\/revisions\/424202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}