Download The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship AudioBook Free
In 1940 Edmund Wilson was the undisputed big dog of American words. Vladimir Nabokov was a near-penniless Russian exile seeking asylum in the us. Wilson became a coach to Nabokov, adding him to every editor of word, assigning to him book reviews for the New Republic, engineering a Guggenheim. Their personal friendship blossomed over the shared interest in every things Russian, ruffled a bit by political disagreements. But then came Lolita, and all of the sudden Nabokov was the big (and incredibly wealthy) dog. Finally the feud erupted completely when Nabokov printed his hugely footnoted and nearly unreadable literal translation of Pushkin's famously untranslatable verse book Eugene Onegin. Wilson attacked his friend's translation with hammer and tong in The New York Review of Literature. Nabokov counterattacked in the same publication. Back and forth the increasingly intense words volleyed until their friendship was reduced to ashes by the narcissism of small variances.
