Word: snobbism
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...outstanding phenomenon," master of "sparkling language (and) unexpected metaphors," a real Russian "yearning for his homeland." Could this be the same Vladimir Nabokov, the great Russian-born novelist, whom Soviet authorities had long dismissed for "literary snobbism"? It could indeed, when a Soviet publication, 64 Chess Review, is prompted by today's new, more permissive cultural climate to print an excerpt from Nabokov's 1954 memoir Other Shores with a glowing introduction by Poet Fazil Iskander. So what if Nabokov is nine years dead, his greatest works, including the sensational Lolita, published decades ago? So what that...
This was the public Beaton. The private one could only be revealed posthumously, once the unexpurgated diaries came to light. Vickers can hardly be called indiscreet for ransacking them. After all, the diarist himself believed that his record of snobbism and social vaulting, of erotic triumphs and humiliations would make "amusing reading" someday. He was correct, but the most remarkable passages are not those of the invert. Fame was Beaton's aphrodisiac, and if heterosexuality was required for a brilliant conquest, well then, he would try that costume for a while. When he met Greta Garbo after World...
...English, who have flirted with Beatles music and the leveling principle, have returned to their ancient heritage of snobbism. They worship their ancestors and buy The Official Shane Ranger Handbook and dream of country houses and old money. They have a look, both wistful and satirical, at the Duke of Bedford's Book of Snobs, with its indispensable advice: "A tiara is never worn in a hotel, only at parties arranged in private houses or when royal ladies are present." They think longingly of the right public school, the right regiment, the right club (Whites, if possible, or Boodles...
Still, she could not easily be dismissed as France's Jacqueline Susann. Stylistically, her descriptive powers were a match for her formidable perceptions. The pity was, went the critical chorus, that she wasted her talent on such trivial themes and frivolous characters. That argument reflected the reverse snobbism of intellectuals who were unwilling to grant that the rich and the worldly were worthy of a novelist's attention, as if there had been no Proust. Sagan defended herself: "I have always made my characters belong to the same social group, out of decency. I've never known...
...penetrate mysteries? The earth does not withhold many secrets any more. Everyone who did not, for one reason or another, travel to China last year is sure to go this year. A tour bus runs down nearly every street in the global village. When does travel degenerate into snobbism or a stunt? Lars-Eric Lindblad, impresario of the edifyingly exotic, takes the vacationing bartender where Darwin most remotely went...