Kurt Johnson (1)
Forfatter af Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius
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Kurt Johnson, Ph.D. is a widely published lepidopterist and a foremost expert on Vladimir Nabokov's lepidoptery. It was during his 15-year association with the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, that he and his colleagues took up the research on Blues where Nabokov left off. vis mere Steve Coates is an editor at The New York Times and the author of numerous articles and reviews on cultural topics for the Times and The Wall Street Journal. vis mindre
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- 161
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- #131,051
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- 3.9
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This book focuses on two tasks: resurrecting Nabokov’s reputation and legacy as a scientist, and picking up where he left off with the Blues. I was most engaged by the chapters about Nabokov, biographical with an emphasis on science in its journalistic and literary manifestations. Nabokov was embedded in the science of the times, and aware of the cutting edge; in Notes, he applied modern techniques of anatomical (not merely wing pattern) comparison, and speculated on evolutionary origins. With a mere 120 specimens from museum collections, he proposed a general classification scheme, anticipating that butterflies found in the future could be placed within it. And he was right in all essentials. Author Kurt Johnson is a lepidopterist whose attention was elsewhere in the 1980s when new discoveries of Blues prompted him to revisit Nabokov’s work. This component of the book is rather inside lepidoptery, as an international team of researchers is brought together and specimens from museum and field are studied. It is probably more compelling to people who are more familiar with the professional terminology than I, but with no qualms about skimming over esoteric passages I was informed and entertained by the difficulties of simply collecting a sufficient variety of butterflies for meaningful analysis, ranging from tedious examination of museum storage drawers packed with poorly labeled specimens, to adventures in barely accessible terrain with success dependent on cooperative weather. Highly recommended for the butterfly enthusiast with literary inclinations.… (mere)