Eugene David ...The One-Minute Pundit |
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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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