Re: Here we go again :)
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Wed, 15 Sep 1999 21:15:29 +1000
Mike wrote:
> Is it just her philosophy, or do you really feel that she is a bad
writer? I
> think she writes pretty well considering English is a *secondary*
language
> for her. Actually, I think she writes better than a good deal of people
who
> have English as a primary language.
Well, Nabokov (yes, *him* again (: ) wrote better than just about anyone I
can think of, in a technical sense at least, and English was his *third*
language, after Russian and French. I think on the contrary, people who
haven't been brought up speaking English can often see incongruities and
quirks that us monolinguists simply do not have the ability to step back
and look at (one of many, many reasons I envy bilingual people). It's often
been said that `Lolita' is a book as much about Nabokov's affair with the
English language as anything else, and I think that holds true.
P.S. If everyone promises not to mention Ayn Rand again, I'll promise not
to mention Nabokov (:
Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com