>Conrad, Joseph. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.
Here's what he had to say about H.G. Wells. Pay attention, /lit/. This is how actual artists think about their art, instead of imprisoning their mind with genre-vs-lit dichotomies:>A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. A great artist, my favorite writer when I was a boy. His sociological cogitations can be safely ignored, but his romances and fantasies are superb. A far greater artist than Conrad. A writer for whom I have the deepest admiration.>The Passionate Friends. Better than anything any of Wells' contemporaries would produce.>Ann Veronica. Better than anything any of Wells' contemporaries would produce.>The Time Machine. Better than anything any of Wells' contemporaries would produce. Especially good.>The Country of the Blind. Better than anything any of Wells' contemporaries would produce. Especially good.>The Invisible Man. Especially good.>The War of the Worlds. Especially good.>The First Men on the Moon. Especially good.
>>25175830>This is how actual artists think about their art,Anon, these "reviews" were satirical, he was having fun with his public image.
>>25175839>satiricalNabokov was many things, but insincere about his taste he was not. Here's his summary of Joyce.>Great. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter. Let people compare me to Joyce by all means, but my English is patball to Joyce's champion game. A genius.>Ulysses: A divine work of art. Greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose. Towers above the rest of Joyce's writing. Noble originality, unique lucidity of thought and style. Molly's monologue is the weakest chapter in the book. Love it for its lucidity and precision.
>>25175823>Cocksuck, Jackin. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a penis for very young people. Certainly smaller than Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable small-sized shaft, narrowed head. Nothing I would care to have between my lips myself. In appearance and texture, hopelessly juvenile. Large in the metaphorical sense. Slightly askew.
>>25175842This is well documented and well known, he was hamming it up and having fun with it. He is mostly sincere about what he likes and dislikes but that is about it and he takes everything to extremes including the language.
>>25175875
Is the world still pretending Hemingway is good
>>25175823Tired of this dude's faggot opinions being touted.
>>25175823I agree with some of what Nabokov said about other writers but most of me just imagines the type of pretentious sanctimonious cocksucker that would bother to write this sort of shit down
>Nabokov, Vladimir. Dislike him. A formidable mediocrity. Certainly not a genius. Tries to compensate with style for lack of substance. One would like to have filmed him getting raped by his uncle.
>>25175823So he was reading Conrad at age 14 but then dismisses him as a "favorite among young people". So it's a self-own.
>>25175823YOYOYOYOYO
>>25176170He was reading Anna Karenina at 14 and I refuse to believe he even got anything out of it at that age. I simply can’t believe all of these are literal and not in jest
I wonder what Nabakov said about Tolstoy?
>>25175994He's like what Christgau is for /mu/
>>25175830I agree with him here, but I think i would understand Conrad more as an adult than as a child.
>>25178275Many people approach Tolstoy with mixed feelings. They love the artist in him and are intensely bored by the preacher; but at the same time it is rather difficult to separate Tolstoy the preacher from Tolstoy the artist—it is the same deep slow voice, the same robust shoulder pushing up a cloud of visions or a load of ideas. What one would like to do, would be to kick the glorified soapbox from under his sandalled feet and then lock him up in a stone house on a desert island with gallons of ink and reams of paper—far away from the things, ethical and pedagogical, that diverted his attention from observing the way the dark hair curled above Anna's white neck. But the thing cannot be done : Tolstoy is homogeneous, is one, and the struggle which, especially in the later years, went on between the man who gloated over the beauty of black earth, white flesh, blue snow, green fields, purple thunderclouds, and the man who maintained that fiction is sinful and art immoral—this struggle was still confined within the same man. Whether painting or preaching, Tolstoy was striving, in spite of all obstacles, to get at the truth. As the author of Anna Karenin, he used one method of discovering truth; in his sermons, he used another; but somehow, no matter how subtle his art was and no matter how dull some of his other attitudes were, truth which he was ponderously groping for or magically finding just around the corner, was always the same truth — this truth was he and this he was an art.What troubles one, is merely that he did not always recognize his own self when confronted with truth. I like the story of his picking up a book one dreary day in his old age, many years after he had stopped writing novels, and starting to read in the middle, and getting interested and very much pleased, and then looking at the title—and seeing: Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy.What obsessed Tolstoy, what obscured his genius, what now distresses the good reader, was that, somehow, the process of seeking the Truth seemed more important to him than the easy, vivid, brilliant discovery of the illusion of truth through the medium of his artistic genius. Old Russian Truth was never a comfortable companion; it had a violent temper and a heavy tread. It was not simply truth, not merely everyday pravda but immortal istina—not truth but the inner light of truth. When Tolstoy did happen to find it in himself, in the splendor of his creative imagination, then, almost unconsciously, he was on the right path. What does his tussle with the ruling Greek-Catholic Church matter, what importance do his ethical opinions have, in the light of this or that imaginative passage in any of his novels?
>>25178289Essential truth, istina, is one of the few words in the Russian language that cannot be rhymed. It has no verbal mate, no verbal associations, it stands alone and aloof, with only a vague suggestion of the root "to stand" in the dark brilliancy of its immemorial rock. Most Russian writers have been tremendously interested in Truth's exact whereabouts and essential properties. To Pushkin it was of marble under a noble sun ; Dostoevski, a much inferior artist, saw it as a thing of blood and tears and hysterical and topical politics and sweat; and Chekhov kept a quizzical eye upon it, while seemingly engrossed in the hazy scenery all around. Tolstoy marched straight at it, head bent and fists clenched, and found the place where the cross had once stood, or found—the image of his own self.
>>25175842>but insincere about his taste he was notHere are two quotes he gave about Borges:>"At first, Vera and I were delighted by reading him. We felt we were on a portico, but we have learned that there was no house."...>A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. A man of infinite talent.Did the former come later, after his disillusionment with Borges? No, it came first. Apparently he went from disillusionment with Borges to considering him one of his favorite authors within a few years. The man was a blowhard with few sincere beliefs who rattled off whatever statement he thought would make him sound most urbane in the moment.
>>25175992Not really. /lit/ couldn't give a shit about Hemingway. Only a handful of boomers like him.
>>25175830>sociological cogitationsIronically, his tankieism and defense of Russia is by far the most interesting about HG Wells, who is otherwise an uninteresting genre fiction writer for kids. I'd like to imagine that if Wells were alive today he'd be impressed with what Putin did in taking a country veering on crumbling away under Yeltsin and making it into a powerhouse of the world and leader of the anti-America coalition.
>>25178277if nabby is xgau who is scaruffi?
>>25175830If anything you should only read Wells' political content and disregard the kids books in Nabokov's list.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_81wmh3fMc
>>25178412Scaruffi is Scaruffi
>>25178412>>25178438>>25178277Though, I’d say Nabakov is more adjacent to Scaruffi than xgau with his takes. Borges is more like Christgau. They’re all contrarians in one way or another anyway.
>>25175823This only shows that HG Wells wasn't a genre writer. He wasn't writing within a set of established conventions, he was creating them.>>25178340How insincere do you have to be to not interpret this as him changing his mind? Though by all records I could find, the first one came later.>>25175884>This is well documentedBy whom?>>25178277>>25178458When you look at Scaruffi or Christgau scores, you doubt they've listened to any music in general let alone what they're scoring, and it is only when you look at their reviews and see their daft comparisons and shot in the dark theory jargon that it becomes clear they're posturing frauds. Whereas with Nabokov, even people who dislike his work and love the works he criticizes admit he has read what they love more times and with better attention to craft and detail after they read his lectures.
>>25178436>>25178396Puddle readers.
>>25178510>HG Wells political interviews and content vs literal genre fiction we read in 8th grade EnglishGee I don’t know which is better ???
>>25178510Putin Dongji will lead the oppressed people to victory against you Nazis.
>hemmingway is better than conraddisagree but respectable take, i like hemmingway a lot even if he isn't my favorite>wells is better than conradHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
>>25178514Imagination is what truly elevates art, but it's not just his diverse premises. There is much darkness, detail and artistry in his works an eight grader won't be able to appreciate. His now edgy Stalinism is ironically more attuned to eight graders.
>>25178504>When you look at Scaruffi or Christgau scores, you doubt they've listened to any music in general let alone what they're scoring, and it is only when you look at their reviews and see their daft comparisons and shot in the dark theory jargon that it becomes clear they're posturing frauds.Nah, they've both clearly listened to a shitload of music they just have goals besides "accurately describe this piece of music"Scaruffi is obsessed with abrasive experimental music and noveltyChristgau is obsessed with meangingful lyrics and making himself look smart and hip
>>25175823yeah I think this man's the GOAT honestly
I love it when retards don't know the Nabokov reviews are satirical and try to post them as bait. That way when a newfag calls them out (rightfully) as pretentiously silly the retard is like "I GOT YOU, APPEAL TO AUTHORITY" when the reality is he has accidentally betrayed the fact he's the one who was baited and filtered all along.
>>25178504>By whom?NTA, but if memory serves, the editor of the magazine these originally appeared in, he asked Nabokov to do something like this that played off his public image and those thin sorts of "reviews" that fill periodicals and are more about the reviewers own ego than the book in question, or maybe they came up with it together? don't quite remember the details. Pretty sure the column was called "Nabokov Reviews."
>>25179718>Nabokov reviews are satirical>>25179749none of this makes them satire, maybe the presentation is tongue in cheek, except it's perfectly in line with how he wrote. the reviews are pieced together from his interview book edited by himself.
>>25180520He did these sort of reviews for The New Yorker and The Atlantic, in one the format was slightly different and had letter grades. He ever reviewed himself.
>>25178559Conrad has a pygmy imagination compared to Wells. As the GOAT, Nabokov can see obvious gaps between writerly imaginations.
>>25180526He did grade himself.
>>25180568Did the obvious autocorrect error really throw you off? I suppose you could think I meant "never" but that would make no sense, who reviews themselves? You really think being able to google means you are never wrong, don't you? See you in the other thread but that will probably be my last post, bedtime and this is getting tiresome.
>>25180572neither >>25180568 or whoever's in the "other thread" is me anon. i am now curious though... but if you were talking about >>25180568 that was marginalia in his personal copy.
