SLSL: Herbert Gold/Nabokov

[MalignD at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/19/02 7:52:38 PM, fqmorris at yahoo.com writes:

<< Cornell is my alma mater, and I'm sure my but has sat in some chair or on 
some
wall where Pynchon's did.  I never knew until this list that Nabakov taught
there, which also makes me happy.  But the facts re. Pynchon's residence there
and Nabakov's too, not to mention Pynchon's course record, should be possible,
by hook or crook, to acquire.  Until something resembling that is sourced in
these reports I remain an agnostic. >>

I don't have that.  However--

I have tracked this down.  In an interview with VN in September of 1966, 
Alfred Appel Jr., himself a student of VN's at Cornell in 1954, asked Nabokov:

AA:  What is your opinion of Joyce's parodies?  Do you see any difference in 
the artistic effect of scenes such as the maternity hospital and the beach 
interlude with Gerty Mcdowell?  Are you familiar with the work of younger 
American writers who have been influenced by both you and Joyce, such as 
Thomas Pynchon (a Cornellian, Class of '59, who surely was in your course), 
and do you have any opinion on the current ascendancy of the so-called 
parody-novel (John Barth, for instance)?

VN:  The literary parodies in the Maternal Hospital chapter are on the whole 
jejunish.  Joyce seems to have been hampered by the general sterilized tone 
he chose for that chapter, and this somehow dulled and monotonized the inlaid 
skits.  On the other hand, the frilly novelette parodies in the Masturbation 
scene are highly successful; and the sudden bursting of its cliches into the 
fireworks and tender sky of real poetry is a feat of genius.  I am not 
familiar with the works of the two other writers you mention.*

The response is footnoted.  There Appel writes:  

*"Mrs. Nabokov, who graded her husband's examination papers, did remember 
Pynchon, but only for his 'unusual' handwriting:  half printing, half script."