strong opinions

Puttering around the used book stores of Edmonton, it's as if there's been some retail conspiracy to keep the supply of Naipaul up, Neruda down, & Nabokov nonexistent. Checking under "N Authors" of the Chapters that dot this flat land, I've consistently found myself frowning at a pair of rouged lips (that lilting "Lolita"), at best accompanied by a copy of "Pale Fire."

After my consumerist bust I grumbled, I heeled myself in the shins, I headed to the library. A most singular place within our unassuming city! Shelves devoted to Nabokov & not one coquettish "Lolita" (the darling was out on loan). I've been very happy ever since & last night was reading "Strong Opinions" - a collection of interviews taken across the decade of 1962 - 1972 compiled & republished by the great man himself. In the forward he famously writes "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

Nabokov's interviews are biographically & philosophically enlightening (although he calls himself a writer without social intent), often hilarious, & always poetical. Since yesterday I've been walking around repeating "Loll-LEE-ta" & "Vla-DEE-mir Na-BOH-kov" - if I will actually exhibit my newfound comprehension of such "proper" pronunciations is indefinite. If you can stand to not be thrown off by his rather charming arrogance, I highly recommend the aptly titled "Strong Opinions."

Just a thought - being also a gifted lepidopterist he makes me wonder how many great poets we've lost to the fastidious world of science.



"Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, "Wolf, wolf," and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born - the tall story had been born in the tall grass."


"There is John Shade in Pale Fire, the poet. He does borrow some of my own opinions. There is one passage in his poem, which is part of the book, where he says something I think I can endorse. He says - let me quote it, if I can remember; yes, I think I can do it: "I loathe such things as jazz, the white-hosed moron torturing a black bull, rayed with red, abstractist bric-a-brac, primitivist folk masks, progressive schools, music in supermarkets, swimming pools, brutes, bores, class-conscious philistines, Freud, Marx, fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks." That's how it goes."



"IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHAT SCENES ONE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE FILMED

Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost.
The beheading of Louis the Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the scaffold.
Herman Melville at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
Poe's wedding. Lewis carroll's picnics.
The Russians leaving Alaska, delighted with the deal.
Shot of a seal applauding."


Lolita - Throw Me The Statue