Nabokov on Faulkner

>“Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.”

Was Nabokov right about Faulkner? I was surprised at this opinion, I thought that he would have more appreciation for W.F., they are kind of alike, and both were heavily inspired by James Joyce. Was he mad because a high school dropout and college flunker from The poorest state in America was able to write The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, etc., books which are debatably better and livelier than Nabokov’s own?

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He’s such a whiny pissbaby

I imagine Nabokov as the seething wojak with tears in his eyes, “RENT FREE” in bold letters inside of a thought cloud above his head, while Faulkner is the smug Pepe, smoking a pipe, the novel prize adorning his neck.

“People don’t talk like that!” His face was red with anger. “People don’t act like that!”

He closed the book and slammed it on the table.

“Children! Come here! Your father wants a word.”

Two young faces peered through the crack in the door. Nabakov spat out an expletive and waved them in. “Ivan! Petryana! Daddy has a gift for you.”

He flung the book across the room at his children, with little caution. Young Ivan picked it up and read the cover.

.

The Idiot

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

.

The two had gone through this rigmarole before. “Father, we already read this! It was really quite good, and so what if Dostoevsky is a better writer than you? You are the greatest living Russian writer, isn’t that enough?”

“Shut up!”

“Shut up! Liars! I can’t believe I’ve raised two liars, I’ve harbored two liars in my house! God is laughing at me, spiteful God! He read my vanity and sent me two horrible children! A death sentence! He’s given me a death sentence, for I shall die from shame.

How can you like Dostoevsky? His characters, they’re completely unrealistic! Great writer? Better writer? You make me laugh! Ha ha!”

Petryana slowly started backing from the room. The children had seen their father rage before, yes, but never this much. Nabakov was waving his arms back and forth in angry discourse, knocking over lamps and piles of paper. He saw them cower in fear and turned pale.

“No, no! Don’t be scared. Daddy is okay. Daddy is healthy. Come here, come here young ones!”

They reluctantly walked towards him. Ivan closed the door. He thought nobody should see his father in such a disgraceful state.

“Petryana, come closer. Hold this. Isn’t it big? Ivan! Ivan, Ivan, Iv… Fyodor, take off your pants. Let’s compare sizes!”

“Don’t you see Nastasya, don’t you see how much larger I am compared to this boy? Don’t you see, I’m much better than Dostoevsky. Come here, won’t you enjoy my manhood?”

“Father, please! This is impure!

“To hell with you! I mean that, I mean that! You two are nothing to me, nothing! I have my characters, my protagonists! Get out!”

Ivan and Petryana silently walk out of the room, leaving their father in his delusional state.

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This is great. Did you write this? It reads like an actual description by a journalist visiting the Nabokov home or something

Ok I spoke too soon what the fuck. I was only at the "How can you like Dostoevsky part". the fuck did I just read

>I imagine Nabokov as the seething wojak with tears in his eyes, “RENT FREE” in bold letters inside of a thought cloud above his head, while Faulkner is the smug Pepe, smoking a pipe, the novel prize adorning his neck.
He's all but saying he's America's Dostoyevsky, but he can't say it (that would be damning with faint praise.)

Then I read this, lmfao

Identity crisis -- he was a Russian Writer denied his homeland audience;-- despite this, whatever heights he reached in this new place, with its new tongue, he would not ever be an American writer, or English writer (still less, even a Great American writer, or Great English writer.) Unrooted greatness with green eyes for the indigenous fauna flourishing in its own element. These were the rustic, frontier tastes he had to court after fleeing his own serf-infested soil half the world away.

>be Russian
>pick up saxophone on a whim
>holy shit I'm really good at this saxophone
>don't really need any training at all
>just doodle doot doot on the saxophone, people love me
>amazing at this saxophone
>people ask how I'm so good
>tell them I can smell colors
>"I just smell them," I say
>"This note is blue" *toot*
>"This one is orange" *toot toot*
>everyone claps
>release one magnum opus after another by tooting the correct color combinations, directly from my soul to your ear
>listen to other saxophone players
>clearly I am better
>listen to some of the ones considered the absolute best in the world
>none of them are fucking blue enough
>get angry
>call them all shit erratically
>randomly say certain ones are okay
>people ask me to explain
>"can't you see? there isn't enough blue in that one! the orange balance is all off!!!!!!!!! this fucking guy doesn't even put reds in his yellows after a green movement!!!!!!!!!"
>try to found a new aesthetic theory where the search to understand harmony and beauty and soul and emotion are all retarded horseshit and everyone should just listen to my personal toot toot theories about color combos forever
>die a bald russian faggot
>unique synesthesia brain rots in ground
>burn in hell
>no one cares about my aesthetics ever again for eternity
>people keep quoting my toot ratings out of context because they're vaguely familiar with my symphony about child-fucking

I don't like Faulkner much either, or Joyce or Nabokob for that matter. Modernists are for pseudo-intellectual tryhards.

is this pasta? it’s glorious