The January/February Atlantic asks a question: “What party would you most like to have attended?”
I am not a party person. But I would like to have attended the party given by Timofey Pnin in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pnin (1957). Partly to see Pnin (a mensch among men), partly to sample Pnin’s Punch (“a heady mixture of chilled Chateau Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino”), partly to hear the dowdy conversation (“This beverage is certainly delicious”), partly to take in Nabokov’s satiric picture of life in a New England college town. I would volunteer to stay late and help Pnin with the dishes.
At the risk of repeating The Atlantic and myself: What party would you most like to have attended?
[Sad: The Atlantic asked this question of its readers on December 22 and has had one response. So I think it’s fine to ask the question here.]
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Party?
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comments: 8
I would have trouble coming up with a real party--maybe the one where Proust met Joyce?--but I can think of several fictional ones I'd like to attend. The Grand Ball in War and Peace might be nice, and so too the airborne, never-ending party in The Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy. Or the "Party in the Woods Tonight" that Jonathan Richman sings about. One nice thing: I never feel awkward at fictional parties.
My first party of choice would be one of Mitrofan Belyayev's Friday night music parties in St. Petersburg.
I thought of the Proust-Joyce party too. And while not exactly a party and more of a salon gathering, attending one of Mallarme's Tuesday evenings must have been amazing. For fictional parties, though, definitely the one in the movie version of Breakfast at Tiffanies, with loud mambo records. And of course all of Gatsby's parties!
Yikes---Breakfast at Tiffany's! (The mind is the first to go...)
So hard to choose, but I would like to have been present when King Frederick II hosted Old Bach in Potsdam, when Mozart hosted a young Beethoven, or to have been a fly on the wall at just about any of the gatherings mentioned in Shattuck's "The Banquet Years."
Babette's Feast?
Thanks for the fun prompt! I posted my response:
Any party onboard the USS Enterprise, but especially the one Spock's parents attended. (This is Star Trek, 1967, so there's even paisley.)
Thanks, everyone, for sharing your party aspirations.
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