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The Nabokov-Wilson letters: Correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, 1940-1971
The NabokovWilson letters Correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson 19401971 Author:Simon Karlinsky (Editor) "These letters, in their abundance and style, are the tangible remains of a protracted love-hate relationship between two remarkable literary personages: Edmund Wilson, the rooted American, who was primarily a critic, and Vladimir Nabokov, the uprooted exile from Russia, who was primarily a novelist -- in a language not his own. ... more » The two thought they understood one another; both had a great deal of professional pride and both were inclined to be polyglot; both also wore the masks of their growing eminence. Their letters can be read as a continuing pas de deux, a ballet of 'upmanship'.
"The ballet goes on — Wilson and Nabokov argue about the pronunciation of nihilist -- or 'neehilist' -- or whether Mérimée really knew Russian or Turgenev English. The correspondence is often a battleground of vanity, pedantry and artistic egotism. It testifies also to the high ideals of art and literature by which both lived; and to their dedication to words, as to an altar of the gods." — Leon Edel« less