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An epic battle of snobbery vs. Dionysus
In case you have nothing better to do over the holidays, why not sit down and read a fictional story about Vladimir Nabokov encountering a certain band in Montreux in 1971.
Nabokov vs Deep Purple is written by one Mark Rudolph, in a genre self described as a post postmodern humor. The story is written from Nabokov’s point of view, who did indeed live in Montreux from 1961 until his death in 1977, and indeed stayed there at the Palace Hotel. This is the same hotel where the band stayed, but not the same where they recorded (The Grand Hotel was empty, cold, and bare for the winter). Keep in mind that Nabokov was infamously quite an, ahem, opinionated gentleman, and equally as infamously hated pretty much all music.
They all came out to Montreux, shaggy drug dunderheads all, rendering my adopted hotel home a discommodious farrago. The band in question was something called “The Deep Purple,” which I assumed was a gang of British homosexualists who prided themselves on the depths of their passive intercourse. It turns out they were a rock band (More like ROCK BOTTOM! I loathe equally Sgt. Pepper, Sgt. Schultz, and Sargent Shriver!).
Our misadventure began when I was in the middle of a typically vivid dream of synesthesia. My wife Vera elbowed me into common consciousness. The acrid smell of pyrolysis filled our room. Mrs. N. rang the dipsomaniac night porter to confirm that the casino on the lake was on fire and not our hotel.
The story can be purchased in print form for $4.20 from MagCloud, or read there for free in digital form.
More from the same author: Pops & Clicks: Eno, Nabokov, Deep Purple.
Thanks to Yvonne for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I might give that a miss…..🙄
December 10th, 2020 at 20:00