Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Poems and Prose | 92Y Readings

Read more about this recording from Brian Boyd, part of 92Y Poetry's 75 at 75: Writers on Recordings: 92yondemand.org/75-at-75-brian...
A special project for our anniversary season, "75 at 75" invites authors to listen to a recording from our vast archive and write a personal response. In most instances, these recordings are being made available to the general public for the very first time. Colm Tóibín on Elizabeth Bishop, Brian Boyd on Vladimir Nabokov, Rick Moody on W. G. Sebald, A. L. Kennedy on E. E. Cummings, Richard Ford on Eudora Welty, Cynthia Ozick on W. H. Auden, Donna Tartt on Carson McCullers, Maxine Hong Kingston on Grace Paley, Helen Vendler on Wallace Stevens, Yiyun Li on William Trevor and Tom Stoppard on Harold Pinter-these are just some of the exciting pairs of recording-responses coming to Poetry Center Online in the next year. -
See more at: 92yondemand.org/Topic/75-at-75/

[@eeskildsen]

0:30 "The Ballad of Longwood Glen"
6:13 _Pale Fire_ excerpt: Foreword
26:02 _Pale Fire_ excerpt: Canto II
39:34 "A Lecture on Russian Poetry" ("An Evening of Russian Poetry")
50:44 _Lolita_ excerpt: "Wanted, Wanted"
55:22 "Rain"

[@d.mavridopoulos66]

Thank you!

[@ARIZJOE]

Nabokov had the condition of synesthesia, a phenomenon that causes sensory crossovers, such as tasting colors or feeling sounds. I believe the sounds of words, the elocution of different languages, even the printed word, set off colors in his mind and emotional fulminations in his brain. He had much greater sensitivity to various forms of art than the rest of us. Also, certain things got on his nerves, like "portable music."

[@jimclark9826]

Longwood Glen, Pale Fire, An Evening of Russian Poetry, and Humbert calling to the mercifully disappeared Lolita. So much here that I adore from our master enchanter VN. And an encore of Rain.

[@garychap8384]

I don't know what it is about the Ballad of Longwood Glen... but I love it. I'd not heard it before : )

[@rkrw576]

There's a fabulous recording of him reading it on LP

[@ARIZJOE]

The forward of "Pale Fire." One of the most inventive, hilarious pieces of literature ever. It really sets the tone for the poem, and commentary on that poem.

[@sibengerard1856]

The most gifted authors are defined by their aesthetic(perceptive) powers...Nabokov undoubtably is one of the few.

[@MxolisiHuey]

3:03 : And the leaves said yes to the questioning wind

[@lohkoon]

Conrad
Nabokov
Both wrote in English.
Conrad, a storyteller.
Nabokov, an impressionist.
For Conrad, the immensities of seas and skies.
For Nabokov, the complexities of patterns and memories.
They came, they saw, they wrote.

[@7enet268]

And this is Nabokov's opinion of Conrad: A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.

[@wetterkrankable]

50:40 Humbert Humbert's poem from Lolita

[@58christiansful]

Quite fascinating. He is always very funny, among his other excellencies. And he is obviously enjoying performing.

[@ARIZJOE]

Yes, Nabokov liked to ham it up a little bit. But more than that, he enjoyed the sound of the words, and elocuting the sounds in a manner that the printed text could not do justice.

[@bobmcgahey1280]

gave the same reading at Harvard 1965 brilliant! he read everything including any "extempore" from 3x5 cards

[@peterkelnerxd7009]

could you mark when he reads prose, which minute ??

[@garychap8384]

@Bob McGahey ... ah, the 3x5 card, native abode of the extemporaneous anecdote. XD

[@billhaywood3503]

@@garychap8384 met him in 1965

[@billhaywood3503]

"I cannot get out said the starling" Jane Austen Mansfield Park and Laurence Sterne

[@tartanhandbag]

Anyone else think he sounds Irish? Reminds me of James Joyce reading Finnegan's Wake. Could just be the era?

[@miat9039]

Yeah me too but oddly enough he reminds me of my irish born french professor and he(nabokov) always has a noble cadence in his voice

[@vsirrmk]

Precious. Rare. But his immortality is prose, not poetry:)

[@billhaywood3503]

agreed but I think he is underrated as a poet

[@KitCalder]

Had there been such a thing anymore as poetic immortality by the time Nabokov was doing it I'm sure he would've garnered the laurel with ease. As it happened, it was his prose-poetry (not to mention his poetry-in-prose) that did it.

[@zetsuXitachi]

6:26 passage from pale fire preface

[@ryanjavierortega8513]

A German has proved that the snow flakes we see/
are the germ cells of stars and the sea life to be.

[@yf4453]

rare

[@lohkoonhoong6957]

[Nabokov]
Let's not on Lolita fixated be;
Let us enjoy some of his poetry.

[@MxolisiHuey]

This is really NABOKO????!?!?!

[@MxolisiHuey]

Awesome!!

[@natanielcostard]

:O

[@Alex-tw4ld]

55:37

[@user-zf7pq8fy5w]

54:22

[@jojosiwadrillremixmp3141]

0:30

[@Alex-tw4ld]

55:20

[@Alex-tw4ld]

55:21