The feud
Subtitle: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the end of a beautiful friendship
By: Alex Beam
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 201
ISBN-13: 9781101870228
Subjects: Friends and associates; Criticism and interpretation
Other titles: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the end of a beautiful friendship
Description: "In 1940 Edmund Wilson was the undisputed big dog of American letters. Vladimir Nabokov was a near-penniless Russian exile seeking asylum in the States. Wilson became a mentor to Nabokov, introducing him to every editor of note, assigning reviews for The New Republic, engineering a Guggenheim. Their intimate friendship blossomed over a shared interest in all things Russian, ruffled a bit by political disagreements. But then came Lolita, and suddenly Nabokov was the big (and very rich) dog. Finally the feud erupted in full when Nabokov published his hugely footnoted and virtually unreadable literal translation of Pushkin's famously untranslatable verse novel Eugene Onegin. Wilson attacked his friend's translation with hammer and tong in the New York Review of Books. Nabokov counterattacked in the same publication. Back and forth the increasingly aggressive letters volleyed until their friendship was reduced to ashes by the narcissism of small differences"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.