EFTA Document EFTA01791126

From: Ed Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 3:02 PM To: Epstein, Jeff Subject: For your amusement Hi Jeff Here is my diary entry on VN Nabokov September 14, 1953 I wandered into Lit 311 soon after I arrived at Cornell in September =953. It was not that I had any interest in European literature, or any =iterature. I was just shopping for a class that met on Monday, =ednesday, and Friday mornings so I wouldn't have any Saturday =lasses and "literature" also filled one of the requirements for =raduation. It was officially called European Literature of the =ineteen Century, but unofficially called "Dirty Lit" by the =ornell Daily Sun, since it dealt with adultery in Anna Karenina and =adame Bovary. The professor was Vladimir Nabokov, an emigre from Czarist Russia. =bout six feet tall and balding, He stood, with what I took to be an =ristocratic bearing, on the stage of the 250 seat lecture hall in =oldwin Smith. Facing him on the stage was his white-haired wife Vera, =ho he identified only as "my course assistant." He made it clear =rom the first lecture he had little interest in fraternizing with =tudents, who would be known not by their name but by their seat =umber. Mine was 121. He said his only rule was that we could not leave =is lecture, even to use the bathroom, without a doctors' note. He then described his requisites for reading the assigned books. He =aid we did not need to know anything about their historic context, and =hat we should under no condition identify with any of the characters =n them, since novels are works of pure invention. The authors, he =ontinued, had one and only one purpose: to enchant the reader. So all =e needed to appreciate them, aside from a pocket dictionary and good =emory, was our own spines. He assured d us that the authors he had =elected— Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, =ane Austen, Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert and Robert Louis =tevenson— would produce tingling we could detect in our spines. So began the course. Unfortunately, distracted by the gorges, lakes, =ovie houses, corridor dates, and other more local enchantments of =thaca, I did not get around to reading any of Anna Karenina before =abokov sprung a midterm exam called a "prelim." It consisted of a =ingle essay question: "Describe the train station in which Anna =irst met Vronsky." Initially, I was stymied by this question because, having not yet read =he book, I did not know how Tolstoy had portrayed the station. But I =id recall the station shown in the 1949 movie starring Vivien Leigh. =aving something of an eidetic memory, I was able to visualize a =ulnerable-looking Leigh in her black dress wandering through the =tation, and, to fill the exam book, I described in great detail =verything shown in the movie from a bearded vendor hawking tea from a =ot-bellied copper samovars to two white doves nesting overheads. Only =fter the exam I learned that many of the details I described from the =ovie were not in the book. Evidently, director Julian Duvivier had =sed some poetic license in filming it. Consequently, when Nabokov =sked "seat 121" to report to his office after class. I fully =xpected to be failed, or even thrown out from Dirty Lit. What I had not taken into account was Nabokov's theory that great =ovelists create pictures in the heads of their readers that go far =eyond what they describe in the words in their books. (Perhaps this =heory accounted for the set decor and Vivian Leigh's sexy dress in =he movie.) In any case, since I was the only one in the exam to confirm his theory =y describing what was not in the book, he not only gave me an "A," =ut offered me a one-day-a-week job as an "auxiliary course =ssistant." Oddly enough, it also involved movies. Every Wednesday, =he movies changed at the four theaters in downtown Ithaca, called by =abokov "the near near," "the near far," "the far near," and "the far =ar." My task was to see all four new movies on Wednesday and Thursday, =nd then brief him on them on Friday morning. He said that since he had =ime to see only one movie, this briefing would help him decide which =ne of them, if any, to see. It was a perfect job for me, I got paid =or seeing movies. All went well for the next couple of months. I had caught up with the =eading, and greatly enjoyed my Friday morning chat with Nabokov in his =ffice on the second floor of Goldwin Smith. Even though it rarely =acted more than 5 minutes, EFTA_R1_00120809 EFTA01791126 it made me the envy of other students in =irty Lit. Vera was usually sitting across the desk from him, making me =eel like I had interrupted their extended study date. My undoing come =hat November, just after he had lectured on Gogol's "Dead =ouls." The day before I had seen The Queen of Spades, a 1949 British film =ased on Alexander Pushkin's 1833 short story. It concerned a Russian =fficer who, in his desperation to win at cards, murdered an elderly =ussian countess to learn her secret method of card picking method. He =eemed uninterested in my recounting the plot, but his head shot up =hen I said in conclusion that it reminded me of "Dead Souls." Vera =Iso turned around and stared directly at me. Peering intently at me, =e asked "Why do you think that." I instantly realized I had made some connection that resonated with a =iew he had, or was developing, concerning these two Russian authors. =t that point, I should have left the office, making some excuse such =s I needed to give the question more thought. Instead, I gave my =ctual (pathetic)logic, saying "They are both Russian." His face dropped, and Vera turned back to face him. While my gig =ontinued to the end of the term in December, it was never the same. Best regards Ed Epstein www.edwardjayepstein.com <?xml version=.0" encoding=TF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version=.0"> <dict> <key>date-last-viewed</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>date-received</key> <integer>136O854127</integer> <key>flags</key> <integer>862375014S</integer> <key>gmail-label-ids</key> <array> <integer>22</integer> <integer>2</integer> </array> <key>remote-id</key> <string>276331</string> </dict> </plist> 2 EFTA_R1_00120810 EFTA01791127