Nabokov
What is Nabokov's ultimate goal in "Good Readers and Good Writers"?
What message is he trying to convey to his audience?
Did you find any cool, odd, and/or interesting textual features
(like the long sentence) that we should address?
If so, try and explain why it might be there - what is the purpose?
Any responses and/or any questions regarding this piece should go in this thread.
posted by D. Robin @ 8/29/2008
8 comments
8 Comments:
I thought that it was interesting that Nabakov related mountain climbing to reading. He says "That mountain must be conquered. Up a trackless slope climbs the master artist, and at the top, on a windy ridge, whom do you think he meets? The panting and happy reader, and there they spontaneously embrace and are linked forever if the book lasts forever" (Nabakov 2). I believe that the mountain represents the novel being read and to conquer it means to read it and comprehend what it says. Nabakov said trackless slope instead of just slope because trackless implies that the reader does not have a set path to follow. It means that the reader can use his or her own imagination instead of any preconceived thoughts while reading the book.
Sonal Chaudhari
I agree with sonal because I like the way he said about using imagination and not preconceived notion to read a book. Preconceived notion might be good for certain books but to really enjoy a book, I think it would be better for a reader to relate to the book rather than having previous information to affect the reader's position on the book. The information can have a positive effect, but it can really distort the opinions the reader might have had without the preconceived notion.
Hyemin Lee
Once again I have decided to post on the blog (it’s more enjoyable than to speak in class), this time on the subject of Nabakov. Aside from messing with my head and giving me an almost paranoid fear of authors (I personally think he is using subliminal messaging to brainwash me), I believe that Nabakov’s main purpose of “Good Readers and Good Writers” is to teach people to appreciate and properly analyze the subtleties within good texts. As a writer himself, he probably wants to show everyone the complex nature of good writing so that authors will have a better audience.
Writers write in order to get a point across to the audience, to entertain this audience, or simply because they enjoy writing. In Nabakov’s case, I think it is all of these (although not as much to entertain people). By teaching people (therefore getting a point across) to be better readers and writers, he allows people to get more enjoyment out what they read (entertaining them). Since it is not very enjoyable to write something and have nobody understand it, he is also helping himself by improving his own audience (this makes it more enjoyable for him to write).
As for textual features, I personally did not fully agree with his list of things defining a good reader (as in the four points he said were true). While I do agree with the parts about imagination and memory (at least to some extent), I have doubts about the other two. While having a dictionary available is good for many novels, I think that there are many times when it is not necessary, such as when the novel does not contain any words unknown to the reader. Although the point about artistic sense is understandable, there are times when a reader should be able to enjoy a simple story without a fancy plot or symbolic meanings. In the end, however, Nabakov’s ideas and my own are, as I believe all things to be, simply the opinions of a person. (As a side note; anyone else think Nabakov is messing with our minds?)
Randolph Chua
Hey Randolph,
Let's say Nabokov is messing with your mind. This claim could be a valid interpretation since he does contradict himself in a few places (you find the evidence to support me here...). So, if we follow this line of logic, and we avoid evaluation (like we should at this point), then the text begs us to respond to a necessary question: why would Nabokov mess with his readers' minds?
In order to respond to this question, one has to address Randolph's choice of the word "mess." It carries a negative connotation - we could change it to "alter" or "confuse" ... etc. to keep the purity of the primary rhetorical goal (to influence someone in a positive way) or we could keep it negative and find some interpretation that accounts for Nabokov's intentional decision to do something that could potentially alienate his audience.
Of course, his audience is never truly alienated unless the people put down the text (which we haven't).
Regardless of how we address this issue, we have to center our response around the fact that Nabokov chose to do X (as a variable - messing with minds, altering reality, instructing imagination, etc.) on purpose (so what was the purpose?).
Right from the beginning, Nabokov establishes a teacher-student relationship. Mr. Robin said in our first period class, that writing/reading can be an art and a science, and Nabokov was trying to show both in this text. Nabokov’s ultimate goal in “Good Readers and Good Writers” is to show how a master reader participates with a text to obtain all the different meanings it is shooting at the reader. It also shows how a master writer should be able to put their meaning in the text multiple ways so the reader can get the meaning. He does all this by teaching by examples, he shows an example of critical and historical analysis, uses alliteration, and puts multiple references to the Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, to show that a “master” writer puts his meaning all over the place. A strange part of the text is when Nabokov switches between the use of “we” and “you.” At times where he is making somewhat controversial statements he uses “we,” but not always. This switching of the terms is confusing, but probably has a reason, since as he and Mr. Robin say everything a writer puts in their book has a reason behind it.
In class, Mr. Robin taught us that good writers like to mess with the reader's mind and in turn, readers like their minds being messed with! I do not believe that Nabokov is "messing" with the reader's mind. He is probably trying to "influence" (a more positive connotation like Mr. Robin said) the reader's mind, whether the reader realizes this consciously or unconsciously. It may even be against the reader's consent to be influenced by Nabokov! But the reader would never know.
This leads to the question of why Nabokov chooses to do X on purpose. His purpose in writing " Good Readers and Good Writers" is to get his audience to know what good reading and writing skills are. With the two words "My course", He becomes the teacher and he wants to teach you how good readers are able to analyze a text. Good readers are able to annotate and find the hidden meanings of words below the surface. Good writers are able to leave many clues behind to get their message across. (Pretty much what Mo said.)It may even be a possibility that Nabokov wants to show that He himself is a good example of what a good writer is.
Ben Wu
I have to say I agree with what Ben is saying. Nabokov is trying to influence you to change and begin transforming yourself into better readers and writers. When exposed to a new topic or suggested to alter your thought process, you might think this is messing with you but it’s just a change we must adjust to in order to excel in reading and writing and follow what Nabokov is trying to teach us. I enjoyed the type of teacher-pupil relationship he tacitly created in order to establish his ethos and have the reader drawn into what valuable knowledge he has to reveal. His advice on how and why we should change our method of reading and writing was very interesting since I have never read such a directive and instructive piece. So for his purpose, I believe he is using many different appeals and heuristics to try and convince his audience to adjust their perception and previous knowledge on reading and writing according to his standard.
-Immanuel Rinkema
The act of influencing involves changing one's idea's/feelings about a subject to be more in-line with the author's. It appears as if Nabokov understands this and chooses the abnormal, yet effective method of confusing his audience so as to pull them away from their own ideas and notions.
Let's say that someone is trying to follow directions to a place of interest or importance. The road there is a long, winding one with many turns and intersections that could confound a very stubborn and arrogant driver who insists that his directions are correct and (s)he couldn't possibly be "lost." Rather than fighting said driver, and author's mission(purpose) would be much more quickly accomplished by simply blindfolding the driver and leading him/her to his/her destination while reassuring him/her throughout their journey that the now helpless driver was never "wrong", only misguided. This of course would be much easier than arguing with such a stubborn person endlessly until he/she sees the point.
What does this have to do with Nabokov? Quite plainly, he toys with his audience's thoughts so as to bring them into a state of confusion, only to lead them out of it to his "point of view"(to create more 'good readers and good writers' as has been agreed upon by most), not only influencing his audience, but having them be grateful for it.
Writing at 2AM,
Bill (Disclaimer: I don't like typing my last name, it's long and the letters are in weird places on the keyboard, henceforth I will only sign my first name, which should be adequate seeing as how there aren't any other junior "Bills.")
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