Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Sunday, April 04, 2004


Today appear two links on ArtsJournal.com re the often tenuous relations between "artists" and morals. First is the "revelation" that Nabokov may have cribbed Lolita from a novella by a German news hack who went on to be a drum-banger for Hitler. Leaving Hitler aside this would seem risible on the face of it: why plagiarize a novel about sex? But I guess some writers need the inspiration. The second is a Times piece on the endless debate over how Commie Shostakovich was. My notion: you do not get to write symphonies in a police state without a certain manner of squirm-making kowtowing, and with his Walter Mitty looks I don't think Shosty was Clark Kent.

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