The medical technician performing the echocardiogram asked me to lie on my side, not “dorsally.” I thought first of the triangular fin on the back of a porpoise. Then I thought of Nabokov’s 1966 interview with Alfred J. Appel, who asks, “Do you think literary criticism is at all purposeful, and if so, what kind of criticism would you point to?” He replies:
“My advice to a budding
literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember
that mediocrity thrives on ‘ideas.’ Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself
if the symbol you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories.
By all means place the ‘how’ above the ‘what’ but do not let it be confused
with the ‘so what.’ Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do
not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent.”
The reference to “small
dorsal hairs” is characteristic of Nabokov’s imagination – physical, playful,
precise. He was a lepidopterist. His remark reminds me of the test for poetry A.E. Housman
proposed in the Leslie Stephen Lecture at Cambridge (Nabokov’s alma mater) in
1933, published as “The Name and Nature of Poetry”: “Experience has taught me,
when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a
line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases
to act.”
Such sensitivity and openness
to a text is part of the “personal talent” Nabokov commends. He
endorses in critics and other readers sensitivity mingled with attention to
detail and independence of thought. So much criticism is written in lockstep
with prevailing fashion. Janet Lewis, in a poem from 1930, “Lines to a Kitten”
(Poems Old and New 1918-1978), describes her cat as a “morsel of
suavity.” It sits on her knee and intently watches a fly six feet across the
room:
“Only the great
And you, can dedicate
The attention so to one
small thing.”
1 comment:
I just read Tobacco Road in an Erskine Caldwell omnibus. I found some surprising virtues in the book (they surprised me, anyway), but no one would ever call the author a stylist. In the book's introduction, Caldwell says this:
"The present writer has no delusions concerning his work. I can only say that the pieces on the following pages are readable, honest, and the result of hard work. I do not consider them to be examples of artistry, or of earth-shaking importance; they are not indicative of a trend in fiction; and they were not written to make propaganda. The one and only thing they do is tell stories; if they do anything else, something is wrong somewhere."
I have to say that this preamble made me favorably disposed to Caldwell going in.
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