| Contents |
The beginning -- Such good friends -- Sex doesn't sell...or does it? -- Whose mother is Russia anyway? -- Meet Eugene Onegin -- What hath Nabokov wrought? -- "He is a very old friend of mine" -- We are all Pushkinists now -- Until death do us part -- Just kidding? -- Why? -- As I was saying... |
| Abstract |
"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"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-186) and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Beam, Alex. Feud. First edition. New York : Pantheon, 2016 9781101870235 |
| Genre/form | Criticism, interpretation, etc. |
| LCCN | 2016007056 |
| ISBN | 9781101870228 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1101870222 hardcover |
