The Nabokov MFA
I’m alluded to this many times before, but it has FINALLY begun. I have been diligent about reading the whole time I have been working on my book, and now I will be folding some higher end stuff into the fold.
The premise, based on my love of Nabokov, and his inability to speak in public, is that I have three books, which are lectures he delivered while teaching college. They include Lectures on Western Literature, Lectures on Russian Literature, and Lectures on Don Quixote.
Each lecture is on a specific novel, and I will be reading them all, in order, beginning with Mansfield Park by jane Austen.
The complete listing is:
Lectures on Western Literature
- Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
- Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
- Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Walk By Swann’s Place, by Marcel Proust
- The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
- Ulysses, by James Joyce
Lectures on Russian Literature (includes novels and short stories)
- Dead Souls, by Nikolay Gogol
- "The Overcoat", by Nikolay Gogol
- Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
- Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevski
- Memoirs from a Mousehole, by Fyodor Dostoevski
- The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevski
- The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoevski
- Anna Karenin, by Leo Tolstoy
- The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy
- "The Lady with the Little Dog", by Anton Chekhov
- "In The Gully", by Anton Chekhov
- "The Seagull", by Anton Chekhov
- "On The Rafts," by Maxim Gorki
So, the plan is to read these in this order, followed by Don Quixote, which has its own book.
Each bulleted item will get its own blog entry, less about the book than what Nabokov discussed and I learned.
There is also a Nabokov MFA category on this blog now, so at a future date and starting with this entry, you will be able to find all of these entries easily.
I will be reading some other recent works between these as palate-cleansers, too. Need to read from this century too once in a while.
March 15th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
I’m just curious as to your decision to read while you’re writing your novel. I’ve heard some authors say they prefer not to read anything until their book is done. The reason for this is simple. If they read others work while still engaged in their own, they may find the other author’s voice usurping theirs.
What do you think about this?
March 15th, 2005 at 7:55 pm
I tried that method as well, refusing to read, but decided to push through and learn to do both. When I finish this first book, the plan is to not breathe a sigh of relief and stop writing, but to plow through and write other things. Essays, etc., not to mention I already know what my next novel is about. So, if I plan to keep writing at a constant clip (a la Stephen King), which is my plan, reading has to be simultaneous, or it will be non-existent. It seems to work fine, so long as I write my novel first thing in the morning, and do my reading in the afternoon. About two hours before bed, I re-read where I am at in my novel, and focus on that when I drfting off to sleep. I intentionally don’t fall asleep curled up with a book.
March 16th, 2005 at 5:24 am
During my commute to work I listened to the audio book of Stephen King’s On Writing. He does mention how he writes every day with no time off. He also discusses his reading habits. Apparently he considers himself a slow reader and yet he gets through about seventy books a year. He reads every day in the evening hours. So I guess I didn’t think about that angle. If you’re writing every day you would never read if you took that approach.
After seeing you gush about Fight Club I had to go out and buy it. Luckily for me I never saw the movie so I can enjoy the book without those pesky movie images in my head. Its short length practically begs a publisher to put it out in trade paper format, which it is.