Nabokov’s Canon

In the early months of 1950, the American writer and critic Edmund Wilson discovered what he termed the "hair-raisingly indecent" works of Jean Genet, specifically Le Journal du voleur and Notre Dame des Fleurs. Citing Jean Cocteau's supposed proclamation to the French authorities as he was trying to get Genet out of jail that the latter was France's greatest living writer, Wilson described Genet's works in a letter to his friend, the notoriously difficult Vladimir Nabokov, and offered to send him a copy of Notre Dame des Fleurs. It should be said that much of the correspondence between the two is taken up with Wilson lauding the works of various authors and trying to get Nabokov to see things his way, with a success rate approaching, although as we shall see not reaching, zero. (1) In terms of Genet, however, he encounters no resistance: "Do send me the homosexual burglar's book!!" Nabokov responds immediately, and with an uncharacteristic use of two exclamation points, adding: "I love indecent literature!!" He then continues, with no transition or paragraph break, to relate the following: "Next year I am teaching a course called "European Fiction" (XIX and XX c.). What English writers (novels or short stories) would you suggest? I must have at least two. Am going to lean heavily on the Russians, at least five broad-shouldered Russians, and shall probably choose Kafka, Flaubert and Proust to illustrate West-European fiction" (262-3). The course in question was the celebrated "Masters of European Fiction" class that eventually made his name at Cornell, became that university's second most popular course, after Pete Seeger's folk-song class, and provided the material for the posthumously published Lectures on Literature. Wilson responds to Nabokov's request by saying: "About the English novelists: in my opinion the two incomparably greatest (leaving Joyce out of account as an Irishman) are Dickens and Austen." He recommends in particular Bleak House and Little Dorrit for Dickens and says that Austen "is worth reading all through" (265). At the same time he sends along a copy of Notre Dame des Fleurs. Nabokov receives both the letter and the Genet book, but he is slow in responding to the advice about English novelists. Instead he immediately reads Notre Dame des Fleurs and writes back the following, which I cite almost in full (leaving out a few topical points): Dear Bunny, Many thanks for lending me the book--which I read with pleasure. It is awfully good in parts. I have the impression that it was written by a litterateur in the quiet of his study. The whole "tough-blood-murder" addition is poor and artificial, with Raskolnikovian echoes. [...] It is a pity that the author did not limit his subject to the description of the mores of tantes (2)--this part is superb. [...] A few other points: I liked the measurements of the penis given for the lovers. Coming to think of it, I applied the same descriptive method to my butterflies [in an article]. Another thing: I thought the description of the love making on the whole rather conventional--once you get the hang of it--in the sense that XVIII-century pornographies with their colorless "assauts," "ebats," enumeration of orgasms, etc., are conventional. The artificial side is augmented by the fact that the perfect health of those men is somewhat suspicious (especially as some were heterosexual too), and really, Frenchmen do take baths at least sometimes. I was a little disappointed by there being no girls around. The only jeune putain was sandwiched between two boys kissing each other, the idiots. (266) This response to Notre Dame des Fleurs bears comment on a number of points. Most obviously, Nabokov's reading goes against almost everything that was being said about Genet at the time and for that matter everything that has been said since. He refuses to be shocked by the shocking aspects, seeing convention in what was taken to be most unconventional, and dismissing as a pose, or what looks like a pose, the very basis for the work's celebrated authenticity (that is, its status as written by a hardened criminal in prison). …