Creative Freedom in Nabby and the Pynch

[Jasper Fidget]

He can seem quite cranky indeed in regard to critics (perhaps something
worth considering for PF).  I am not sure I agree that these quotes are
out of context; most of these interview questions and their answers are
quite independent of others due to VN's preference for receiving them in
printed form and returning them with his responses.  The Toffler
interview was conducted in this manner, and the Appel interview, while
taking place in person, was not done through recording but by dictation
or by VN manually writing out his replies.

Jasper Fidget

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org 
> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Bandwraith at aol.com
> Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2003 11:44 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Creative Freedom in Nabby and the Pynch
> 
> 
> Quite interesting, and taken out of context, here, make
> the old fellow seem rather cranky. In any comparison
> between Pynchon and Nabokov regarding "Creative Freedom"
> it would seem that Nabokov is at a disadvantage because
> he has spoken publicly so much, and these words can be
> twisted. I will try to return to this topic as the reading 
> progresses, and attempt, along the way, to thread it into the 
> discussion of the works themselves. It will keep me focused. 
> As a starting point I might suggest that the idea of one of 
> his fictional works being attacked by "larvae and rust" 
> contrary to the fears of Nabokov, might seem rather
> liberating- in some ways- to Pynchon, albeit, after it has
> been thoroughly digested by his audience.
> 
> respectfully
> 
> In a message dated 6/15/03 8:14:06 AM, jasper at hatguild.org writes:
> 
> << Nabokov, From an interview with Alfred Appel, Jr., 
> "Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature", vol. XVIII, 
> no. 2, 1967, reprinted in _Strong Opinions_.
> 
> "Appel: One often hears from writers talk of how a character 
> takes hold of them and in a sense dictates the course of the 
> action.  Has this ever been your experience?
> 
> VN: I have never experienced this.  What a preposterous 
> experience! Writers who have had it must be very minor or 
> insane.  No, the design of my novel is fixed in my 
> imagination and every character follows the course I imagine 
> for him.  I am the perfect dictator in that private world 
> insofar as I alone am responsible for its stability and 
> truth. Whether I reproduce is as fully and faithfully as I 
> would wish, is another question.  Some of my old works reveal 
> dismal blurrings and blanks." (p 69)
> 
> From an interview with Alvin Toffler in Playboy, Jan, 1964:
> 
> "Toffler: A contribution to society?
> 
> VN: A work of art has no importance whatever to society.  It 
> is only important to the individual, and only the individual 
> reader is important to me.  I don't give a damn for the 
> group, the community, the masses, and so forth.  Although I 
> do not care for the slogan 'art for art's sake' -- because 
> unfortunately such promoters of it as, for instance, Oscar 
> Wilde and various dainty poets, were in reality rank 
> moralists and didacticists -- there can be no question that 
> what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not 
> its social importance but its art, only its art." (p 33)
> 
> From the same interview:
> 
> "Toffler: What is your reaction to the mixed feelings vented 
> by one critic in a review which characterized you as having a 
> fine and original mind, but 'not much trace of a generalizing 
> intellect,' and as 'the typical artist who distrusts ideas'?"
> 
> VN: [...] The middlebrow or the upper Philistine cannot get 
> rid of the furtive feeling that a book, to be great, must 
> deal in great ideas.  Oh, I know the type, the dreary type!  
> He likes a good yarn spiced with social comment; he likes to 
> recognize his own thoughts and throws in those of the author; 
> he wants at least one of the characters to be the author's 
> stooge.  If American, he has a dash of Marxist blood, and if 
> British, he is acutely and ridiculously class-conscious; he 
> finds it so much easier to write about ideas than about 
> words; he does not realize that perhaps the reason he does 
> not find general ideas in a particular writer is that the 
> particular ideas of that writer have not yet become general." (p 41)
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
>  >>
>