NPPF Commentary Line 172, P. 154-156 Part 3

[Vincent A. Maeder]

Mary: Cogent points.  It is interesting the parallels between the backstory
of these two texts.  I haven't had the opportunity to read the Boswell work
or Sisman's work, but it appears Mr. Nabokov was very familiar with Mr.
Boswell's work and lifted much plot from it.  V.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mary Krimmel [mailto:mary at krimmel.net]
> Probably others have enjoyed the book "Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The
> Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson" / Adam Sisman, as I have. Both Sisman's
> original eight-page Introduction to the book and his two-page introduction
> to the Study Guide appended in the Penguin edition are well worth reading.
> 
> The book suggests so many Kinbote/Shade parallels (and divergences) that
> had it been produced fifty years earlier I could suppose that VN had read
> it. The title is taken from Boswell's first sentence in the "Life..."
> [Sisman modernized Boswell's spelling and punctuation.]
> 
>       "To write the life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the
> lives of others...may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task."
> 
> A self-assessment about as far from Kinbote as you can imagine. I am
> tempted to quote one paragraph from Sisman's introduction (p.xviii in the
> Penguin edition) and I yield to temptation.
> 
>       "The Life of Johnson can be read as an unending contest between
> author and subject for posterity. Johnson and Boswell are locked together
> for all time, in part-struggle, part-embrace. Boswell will forever be
> known
> as Johnson's sidekick, remembered principally because he wrote the life of
> a greater man; Johnson is immortalized but also imprisoned by the Life,
> known best as Boswell portrayed him. Each is a creation of the other."
> 
> Mary Krimmel
> 
> At 08:07 AM 10/7/03 -0700, you wrote:
> >Back to Mr. Kinbote's little black book which contains "a footnote from
> >Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson . . ."  Although I would be harried to
> >find a suitable footnote from this opus, I have supplied a website that
> >seems to have the complete work:
> >http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/  But it is interesting that
> >Mr. Kinbote brings up this reference.  Perhaps he saw our Mr. Shade as
> >his Mr. Boswell to his own works.  Also, here Mr. Kinbote has actually
> >played the Boswell part by transcribing Mr. Shade's conversations.
> >Well, here's some encyclopedic snippets of these two gents.
> >
> >James Boswell, 1740-1795, was a Scottish lawyer, diarist, and writer
> >renowned as the biographer of Samuel Johnson.  He inspired a noun:
> >Boswell, n. assiduous and devoted admirer, student, and recorder of
> >another's words and deeds.  Some encyclopedia around here states that
> >Mr. Boswell was the son of a judge.  He reluctantly studied law and
> >practiced throughout his life.  His true interest was in a literary
> >career and in associating with the great individuals of the time.  He
> >met Samuel Johnson in 1763 and, having himself achieved fame with his
> >Account of Corsica (1768), produced Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides
> >with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785).  His great work, The Life of Samuel
> >Johnson, LL.D. appeared in 1791.  Boswell recorded Johnson's
> >conversation so minutely that Johnson is better remembered today for his
> >sayings than for his own literary works.  The curious combination of
> >Boswell's own character (he was vainglorious and dissolute) and his
> >genius at biography has led later critics to call him the greatest of
> >all biographers.  Masses of Boswell manuscript, discovered in the 20th
> >cent. near Dublin, have enhanced his reputation.
> >
> >As for Mr. Johnson, the encyclopedia states that Samuel Johnson,
> >1709-84, was an English author.  The leading literary scholar and critic
> >of his day, he helped to define the great period of English literature
> >known as the Augustan Age.  He is as celebrated for his brilliant
> >conversation as for his writing.  He began writing for London magazines
> >around 1737, on literary and political subjects.  The anonymously
> >published poem London (1738) won the praise of Pope, and his reputation
> >was further enhanced by his poetic satire The Vanity of Human Wishes
> >(1749) and his moral essays in The Rambler (1750-52).  Johnson's place
> >was permanently assured by his great Dictionary of the English Language
> >(1755), the first comprehensive English lexicon.  Rasselas, a moral
> >romance, appeared in 1759, and the Idler essays between 1758 and 1760.
> >In 1763, Johnson met James Boswell, and his life thereafter is
> >documented in Boswell's great biography (1791).  With Joshua Reynolds he
> >founded (1764) "The Club"; this elite gathering, with such members as
> >Goldsmith, Burke, and Garrick, was dominated by Johnson, whose wit and
> >aphorisms are still remembered.  In 1765, he published his edition of
> >Shakespeare, the model for later editions.  His last works include an
> >account (1775) of a trip with Boswell to the Hebrides and the perceptive
> >10-volume Lives of the Poets (1779-81).  He was England's first complete
> >man of letters, and his influence was incalculable.