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Title: The Feud

Subtitle: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship

Author: Alex Beam

Narrator: Douglas Pullar

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-06-16

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

In 1940 Edmund Wilson was the undisputed big dog of American letters. Vladimir Nabokov was a near-penniless Russian exile seeking asylum in the States. Wilson became a mentor to Nabokov, introducing him to every editor of note, assigning to him book reviews for the New Republic, engineering a Guggenheim. Their intimate friendship blossomed over a shared interest in all things Russian, ruffled a bit by political disagreements. But then came Lolita, and suddenly Nabokov was the big (and very rich) dog. Finally the feud erupted in full when Nabokov published his hugely footnoted and virtually unreadable literal translation of Pushkin's famously untranslatable verse novel Eugene Onegin. Wilson attacked his friend's translation with hammer and tong in The New York Review of Books. Nabokov counterattacked in the same publication. Back and forth the increasingly aggressive letters volleyed until their friendship was reduced to ashes by the narcissism of small differences.

Critic Reviews:

"A fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse, full of anecdotal ephemera, of how Wilson and Nabokov interacted and why." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

I was a great fan of the books of both Vladimir Nabokov and ...

I was a great fan of the books of both Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson before I discovered their feud , and then later learned that they had previously been great friends. This book tells the entire story wonderfully , and bring both Nabokov and Wilson to life . It also reminds us of a time when literature played a greater role in American life than it does today . Wilson was the arbiter of traditional literary values , while Nabokov was the fearless (at times reckless) innovator and iconoclast. It is fascinating to watch the reputation of one rise from obscurity to global fame, while the other moves in the other direction.

If you have any interest in either of these authors, you will love this book as I did.

Great disappointment

This book was a great disappointment. I is more about the author than Nabokov and Wilson.

This book is hilarious!

Alex Beam reports that when he first heard of the feud between Vladmir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, he laughed out loud I did the same reading this book. I was a grad student in English at a time when Edmund Wilson was very much a personage. I read The Wound and the Bow, The Shores of Light and his diaries from the 1960s. Those later diaries did put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm for Wilson because I learned more than I wanted to know about the sexual problems of elderly men.

And I also enjoyed Nabokov. My college mentor was a huge fan of Pale Fire and I learned to love it as well. Wilson provided Nabokov an entree to many opportunities to review and helped more than one member of the Nabokov family.

The two were reported to be the best of friends.

Then Nabokov did a translation of Eugene Onegin It came out in 4 volumes and totalled 1,895 pages most of which was commentary on the poem. It also includes such interesting English words as "mollitude" and "shandrydans." The most amusing conflict is when Nabokov's colleagues on this translation project suggest he use the word friend while he stubbornly refuses to consider any other word than "pal."

When the Onegin translation was published, Wilson reviewed it for the The New York Review of Books.