Word: seeing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...overwhelming majority of people who are classified as blind can, in fact, see and function as sighted persons in most important areas of everyday life," writes Scott. "There is nothing inherent in the condition that requires a blind person to be docile, dependent or helpless. Blindness is a social role that people must learn to play. Blind men are made...
This little charade is just a conversational pleasantry. Or is it? Who can ever be sure with Nabokov? Perhaps he has something more in mind. Devout Nabokov watchers might find clues in those references to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory. They might see implications of the fall of Rome, the rise of Byzantium, and a consequent gap between East and West that makes comparisons impossible between Anglo-Saxon writers (Shakespeare) and Slavic writers (Nabokov...
...see through Nabokov's fun and games to his underlying sadness and seriousness requires an understanding of the unfashionable notion that games can be both creative and profound. The essence of the Nabokov creative method is parody. His creatures are not symbols or branches snatched from The Golden Bough. But they are haunted by literary ancestors. Enjoying parody requires knowledge of the literary forms and fashions being spoofed?which is one reason why Nabokov is difficult. "He is not the kind of novelist," says Anthony Burgess, "whom you sit down to with a Scotch or an apple." In a rare...
...Nabokovs entertained sparingly and cared only to see a few close friends. They were too busy. Besides, science (lepidopterology) was once again coming to the aid of Vladimir's art. Its handmaiden was technology in the form of a 1952 Buick, bought mainly to search for specimens in the West. Vera did the driving. Nabokov, with the security of a man who is good at nearly everything, easily concedes he cannot handle a car, adding generously, "There are some people who can refold maps, too, but I am not one of them." Every summer they coursed up and down Arizona...
Today, Nabokov is a distant and revered personage safe in Switzerland; his judgments and comments are no less candid than ever. Along with a great many writers (see box p. 82), the informal list of his jocular pet hates includes such things as: progressive education; "serious" writers; confessions in the Dostoevskian manner; book reviewers, most of whom, Nabokov contends, "move their lips when reading"; people who say "excuse me" when they belch. Clearly, in an age practiced in the smooth piety of mock humility and slackly trained to believe that sincerity is an excuse for nearly everything, the public Nabokov...