(source: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov)
Friday, 7 February 2014
"Poshlost", according to Nabokov
"“Poshlust,”
or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances, and evidently I have
not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one
can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism
in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude,
moronic, and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we
want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing, we must look for it in
Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic
messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the
journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as
“America is no better than Russia” or “We all share in Germany's guilt.” The
flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as “the moment of truth,”
“charisma,” “existential” (used seriously), “dialogue” (as applied to political
talks between nations), and “vocabulary” (as applied to a dauber). Listing in
one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging
to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name—that of the treasurer) is
genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in
certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet and Mr. Bluff a
great novelist. One of poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the
Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the
tools of wreckers, building crankshaft cretins of stainless steel, Zen stereos,
polystyrene stinkbirds, objects trouvés in latrines, cannonballs, canned balls.
There we admire the gabinetti wall patterns of so-called abstract artists,
Freudian surrealism, roric smudges, and Rorschach blots—all of it as corny in
its own right as the academic “September Morns” and “Florentine Flowergirls” of
half a century ago. The list is long, and, of course, everybody has his bête
noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is that airline ad: the snack served
by an obsequious wench to a young couple—she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber
canapé, he admiring wistfully the hostess. And, of course, Death in Venice. You
see the range."
(source: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov)
(source: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov)
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