by Robert Roper
25 Shortly after Pearl: Schiff, 120.
26 by spring of ’43: DBDV, 105; Schiff, 125.
27 only after she had left: Boyd 2, 42–43. While the Wellesley College president was finding Nabokov not quite desirable, members of the Italian, Spanish, German, and French departments found him entirely captivating and wrote to the dean asking that he be retained, and members of the English department organized a petition drive on his behalf.
28 community-wide addresses: Boyd 2, 41.
29 “little white-bearded”: Boyd 1, 34.
30 “Have you noticed”: DBDV, 54. In ’58, on a summer trip that took them to Glacier National Park, near the Montana-Alberta border, Vladimir and Véra read War and Peace to each other while sitting out days of bad weather in a cabin. Nabokov later told an interviewer that they gave up because the book now struck them as childish and old-fashioned: Boyd 2, 362.
31 match the passage of time: Ibid., 41.
32 “not go into the mill”: Hall, 13.
33 “none of this”: Laughlin, “Taking a Chance on Books: What I Learned at the Ezuversity,” National Book Awards acceptance speech, 1992, National Book Foundation, http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_jlaughlin.html#. VE0ygOe6XdA.
34 the independent: Hall, 13.
35 poorly translated: Boyd 2, 45.
36 “dry shit”: SL, 41.
37 “Russian literature was purblind”: NG, 86.
38 “The big overgrown”: DS, Garnett, 158–59.
39 “An extensive … dark bird”: N., Lectures on Russian Literature, 25.
40 “Strands of hop”: NG, 87–88.
41 “tendrils faintly stirring”: DS, Garnett, 159.
42 was the focus of a question: Boyd 1, 194.
43 “I ride my balloon-tired”: D.N., “Close Calls,” 303–4.
44 “wonderful thing will happen”: Ibid., 304.
45 “I sit on the lawny grounds”: Ibid., 304–5.
46 “dingy”: N., “Introduction,” BS, xi.
47 under old lady: Ibid.
48 looking trim: SL, 58. A suit with a red jockey cap might have provoked some amusement among Dmitri’s American schoolmates. Véra, in a letter to friend Elena Levin, also spoke of looking out at the world from that window on Craigie Circle. Houghton.
49 he informs Elena: SL, 58.
50 gone to weeds: Ibid.
51 transformation of Harvard: Ireland. So transformed was Harvard that by 1944 graduating seniors numbered nineteen, the fewest since 1753. Harvard’s turn toward war research led to the development of the Mark I “Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator,” a protocomputer used for Manhattan Project calculations, and to the development of Harvard’s first cyclotron, crucial aspects of sonar, fiberglass, napalm, chaff (strips of aluminum foil used to dupe enemy radar), blood plasma derivatives, synthesized quinine, antimalarial drugs, and new treatments for burns and shock. Twenty-seven thousand Harvard students, faculty, staff, and alumni served during the war; 697 died.
52 “My museum”: SL, 58–59.
53 fourteen-hour days: DBDV, 145; Schiff, 128.
54 “already in the blue darkness”: SL, 59.
55 “Funny—to know Russian”: DBDV, 72.
56 “book is progressing slowly”: Ibid., 75.
57 “I envy so bitterly”: Ibid., 100.
58 “urge to write”: Schiff, 128n.
59 Isaiah Berlin: Kelly, 51. Berlin’s conversation was with Vera Weizmann, Chaim Weizmann’s wife.
60 sixty dollars a month: Schiff, 129.
61 “scene is unpleasant”: NG, 2.
62 The book develops: Ibid., 36–37.
63 “strange; it is only your”: NG, 140.
64 “amusing to think”: DBDV, 76.
65 first scientific papers: N. had previously published two other entomological papers in America. NB, 238–43. In Europe he had also published earlier papers: Remington, 279, 283n9.
66 “am taking advantage”: N. to Comstock, February 20, 1942, Berg.
67 English was thereafter: SO, 5.
68 “A broad cinereous”: NB, 254. By sending this article (and other science writings) to Wilson, N. might have overtaxed the professional literary man, who read some of N.’s later literary productions hastily, almost casually, perhaps out of habit. N.’s science writing was often quite charming as well as precise.
69 developed a system: Boyd 2, 67–68.
70 his butterfly prose: SM, 134, 136.
Chapter Seven
1 “married a genius”: Boyd 2, 46.
2 he set off in October: Schiff, 123.
3 “creepily silent melancholic”: N., “Russian Professor,” 104.
4 “Arrived here, on”: Ibid.
5 “After lunch”: Ibid., 102.
6 or Whitman’s when: Roper, Drum, 37–38.
7 “since at the numerous stations”: N., “Russian Professor,” 100.
8 makings of another book: Ibid., 100, 102–3.
9 weirdly foliaged: This was the Okefenokee Swamp. Boyd 2, 51.
10 shows himself as a bumbler, too: N., “Russian Professor,” 104.
11 iconic African Americans: Ibid., 103. N. memorably sketched Du Bois in a letter to Wilson: “Celebrated Negro scholar and organizer. 70 years old, but looks 50. Dusky face, grizzled goatee, nice wrinkles, big ears,—prodigiously like a White Russian General in mufti played sympathetically by Emil Jannings. Piebald hands. Brilliant talker, with an old-world touch. Tres gentilhomme. Smokes special Turkish cigarettes. Charming and distinguished… . Told me that when he went to England he was listed as ‘Colonel’ on the Channel boat, because his name bore the addition ‘Col.’ on his passport.” DBDV, 97.
12 racial segregation: SO, 48.
13 “and the prosperity”: N., “Russian Professor,” 102.
14 “I need not tell you”: DBDV, 2; Boyd 2, 644.
15 “cost me more trouble”: SL, 45.
16 “art-speech”: Lawrence, 13.
17 “which belongs”: Ibid.
18 Lawrence’s book cost him: Classic American took Lawrence seven years to write, longer than any of his other works except Women in Love. The essays changed a great deal over time; at first they were cautious and sober, but in the end they achieved a tone “notoriously flippant, opinionated, disrespectful and informal,” not unlike the tone of Nikolai Gogol. Neil Roberts, “Studies in Classic.”
19 “There is a new feeling”: Lawrence, 14.
20 Style is what makes meaning: Lawrence’s two chapters on Melville in Classic American contributed substantially to the rediscovery of Melville in the twenties. Delbanco, 24. N. performed a similar unearthing with Nikolai Gogol. Lawrence wrote an essay, “À Propos of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” after the 1928 publication of his famous novel; it might have suggested to N. the postscript he wrote, “On a Book Entitled ‘Lolita,”’ in ’56, although the two essays are otherwise quite different.
21 gotten his Guggenheim: Boyd 2, 61. The grant was for the writing of a novel. Bend Sinister at this point bore the working title “The Person from Porlock,” that person being the untimely visitor who supposedly interrupted Coleridge while he was transcribing Kubla Khan, which had come to him entire in a dream and which, as a result, remained unfinished.
22 “near a place which”: DBDV, 111.
23 “going to tell me”: Ibid.
24 tumbling canyon: The canyon, commonly called Little Cottonwood Canyon, is popular among rock climbers. The local cliffs contributed giant blocks of quartz monzonite to the construction of the Salt Lake Temple of the LDS Church. “Little Cottonwood Canyon,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Cottonwood_Canyon.
25 “a propensity… . butterflies are to me”: SL, 58–59.
26 “vain, quick-tempered”: Ibid., 59.
27 The waywardness: Berg.
28 “anxious to take a course”: N. to Jakobson, January 28, 1952, Berg.
29 “landlord and the poet”: DBDV, 116.
30 “Well … read
further”: NG, 151–52.
31 especially keen disregard: N.’s savaging of other writers is so consistent a feature of his literary discourse that it probably served many purposes, professional as well as psychological. It may be that the Russian literary milieu rejoiced in such vituperation, but other writers of the emigration were more temperate. Speaking of Mark Aldanov, N. wrote, “I am sorry that you discussed my poem with friend Aldanov who for twenty years has been eyeing my literature with a kind of suspicious awe under the impression that my chief business was to demolish brother-writers… . Aldanov regards literature as a sort of enormous Pen Club or Masonic Lodge binding talented and talentlos writers alike to a smug contract of mutual good-will … assistance and favorable reviews.” DBDV, 137.
N. did not mellow with age. His denunciations became more performative—N. playing himself—but their effect was to define worthwhile writing as excludingly as had the social-reform critics he denounced in The Gift. There is a plant of the American Southwest that N. knew well, called creosote bush, that is long-lived and that creates a dead zone around itself, outcompeting all other species by the efficiency of its root system and by producing chemicals that poison them.
32 Faulkner he dismissed: DBDV, 236–37. “I am appalled by your approach to Faulkner,” he wrote Wilson. “It is incredible that you should take him seriously … that you should be so fascinated by his message (whatever it is) as to condone his artistic mediocrity.”
33 “As to Hemingway”: SO, 80.
34 influenced American film: Among American movies of the past twenty-five years, Pulp Fiction and No Country for Old Men, for instance.
35 “liked very much Mary’s”: DBDV, 117n3.
36 read, and lustily hated: Ibid., 116, 117n4.
37 “a he-man”: Ibid., 116.
38 “Twenty years ago”: Ibid.
39 probably McTeague: Ibid., 117n6.
40 marks of desolation: NG, 151.
41 “delicate sunset was framed”: NG, 151.
42 known as pugs: NB, 12.
43 “wrote every day”: Time morgue file, Berg.
44 with a pen: DBDV, 115. “He went to the bathrm, took a cold shower … and tingling with mental eagerness and feeling comfortable and clean in pyjamas and dressing gown, let his fountain pen suck in its fill.” BS, 170.
45 weather kept them indoors: Schiff, 127.
46 “a draggle-eared black”: NG, 153.
47 “I climb easily”: DBDV, 115–16.
48 Lone Peak the most arduous: “Lone Peak,” SummitPost.org, http://www.summitpost.org/lone-peak/151267.
49 “white shorts and sneakers”: Time morgue file, Berg.
50 “incredibly steep … sheer wall”: “Lone Peak 11,253’,” Climb-Utah.org, http://climb-utah.com/WM/lonepeak.htm.
51 “lost his footing”: Time morgue file, Berg.
52 “footing and began to slide”: Hall, “Ezra Pound Said.”
53 sent a squad car out: Schiff, 127.
54 “trudged and climbed some 600”: DBDV, 117.
55 “living in wild eagle country”: Bakh, August 6, 1943; NB, 289–90.
56 “In the meantime”: DBDV, 294–95.
57 Unsoeld was hired: Leamer, 50–51. The next fall, Unsoeld began graduate theology studies at Oberlin.
58 well-regarded doctoral thesis: Roper, Fatal Mountaineer, 47. Like Unsoeld, N. read Bergson carefully and held him in esteem.
Chapter Eight
1 sharp decompression: DBDV, 294.
2 “work on the Blues”: Ibid., 126.
3 “milk shakes and banana”: Bagazh, 188.
4 “poignantly authentic”: Ibid., 191.
5 “Not only their tunes”: Ibid., 190.
6 “has had a serious”: DBDV, 132.
7 collaborate on “a book”: Ibid., 121.
8 “You may find them”: Ibid., 118.
9 “I am returning”: Ibid., 119. On November 23, 1943, N. wrote, “It is wonderful that anybody could write about Russian letters as you do.”
10 superb journalism: Wilson also read Prince Mirsky on Pushkin. DBDV, 74, 79.
11 gestures of respect: Only with Wilson did N. seriously consider co-writing a book. DBDV, 121–22.
12 “So I am still looking”: Ibid., 76.
13 “If I had the leisure”: Ibid., 78.
14 “the whole book”: Ibid., 120. Nabokov and Wilson did in the end author a book together, the posthumous The Nabokov-Wilson Letters (1979), later expanded to become Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya (2001). In ’66, N. told an interviewer, “The only time I ever collaborated with any writer was when I translated with Edmund Wilson Pushkin’s ‘Mozart and Salieri’ for the New Republic.” SO, 99.
15 “An obscure paper”: DBDV, 132, 142.
16 “Are you writing”: DBDV, 112.
17 “eager to see … excellent”: Ibid., 138.
18 written two years later: BS, introduction, xi; Boyd 2, 91.
19 “programmatic refusal”: Boyd 2, 106.
20 “There at the door”: BS, 22.
21 “The main theme”: Ibid., xiv.
22 A secondary character: Ember is the translator of Krug’s The Philosophy of Sin, which makes Krug successful in America—“banned in four states and a best seller in the rest.” BS, 26.
23 Wilson’s failure: Sweeney, “Sinistral Details.” The McCarthy novel was The Company She Keeps.
24 Wilson, when the book: In ’52, when N. worked a reference to Wilson into a story published in the New Yorker, Wilson wrote, “I’m sorry you told me that there was something about me in [the story ‘Lance’], because I have to make it a rule never to read anything in which I am mentioned, for fear it will influence my judgment.” DBDV, 303.
25 “I had had some doubts”: Ibid., 209–10.
26 “For you, a dictator”: Ibid., 210.
27 “dull thud”: N., “Introduction,” BS, xii.
28 “I think, too”: Ibid.
29 reminded him of Thomas: DBDV, 210.
30 “She was standing”: BS, 145.
31 “slammed the door”: Ibid., 158. The play, the lap, and a daughter taken sexually predict Lolita, 61–64 and passim.
32 “Good night”: BS, 174.
33 “lost his wife”: Ibid., 174–5.
34 “He opened”: Ibid., 175.
35 “You know too little”: Ibid., 176–77. Cf. Lolita, 71.
36 American slang: BS, 143, 160.
37 “‘Sure,’ said Mac”: Ibid., 180.
38 “a steak for five”: Ibid., 178.
39 “He saw David”: Ibid., 168.
40 “It is rather”: Hardwick, 20.
41 fully take command: In April ’47, he wrote two friends, the Marinel sisters, “As for Russian prose, I seem to have completely lost the knack.”: SL, 74.
42 “I have not had”: DBDV, 215.
43 wonderful, enchanting books: Updike, 191–92, 202. “To my taste his American novels are his best,” Updike wrote. “In America his almost impossible style encountered … a subject as impossible as itself… . He rediscovered our monstrosity … the eerie arboreal suburbs, the grand emptinesses, the … junk of roadside America … the wistful citizens of a violent society desperately oversold … on love.” About Speak, Memory Updike observed, “Nabokov has never written English better than in these reminiscences; never since has he written so sweetly.” Ada did not find favor with the American-born novelist: “I confess to a prejudice: fiction is earthbound… . His vision and flair are themselves so supermundane that to apply them to a fairyland is to put icing on icing. There is nothing in the landscapes of Ada to rank with the Russian scenery of Speak, Memory or the trans-American hegira of Lolita and Humbert Humbert.
44 the chorus of praise: DBDV, 230.
45 “Mother take you and me”: Lolita, 47.
46 “As I lay”: Ibid., 56.
47 “Oh, my Lolita”: Ibid., 33.
48 “School was taught”: SM, 180.
49 “I see very clearly”: Ibid., 53–54.
50 “rather dejected”: DBDV, 142.
51 plan to return west: Ibid.
52 “hooligans”: DBDV, 146.
53 cleanest lake: The Inn on Newfound Lake, home page, http://www.newfoundlake.com/main.html.
54 “filthy”: Schiff 134.
55 a story about anti-Semitism: Boyd 2, 107.
56 other versions of the story: Schiff, 134; Appel, Annotated, 424.
57 he went to a hospital: DBDV, 194.
58 “There are lots of wonderful”: Ibid., 188. N. also referred to “impotent me” in a letter on May 25. Ibid., 192. Wilson’s Memoirs of Hecate County sold sixty thousand copies in its first year of publication. It then became the subject of an obscenity prosecution and was put under ban. The cost to Wilson in lost royalties was severe. The novel was not republished until ’59, when Lolita’s difficult but legally less troubled march to market signaled a promising change in the atmosphere. Wilson’s reversals were not lost on N. But Hecate County’s tantalizing early success showed the potential of an artfully written novel that was sex-centered to excite readers. Wilson considered Hecate County his best book. De Grazia, 209–10.
59 smell of fried clams: Schiff, 134; NB, 397. N. had many pleasurable experiences collecting east of the Mississippi, but on the whole he preferred the West, for its less domesticated, grander, more mountainous landscapes. To a Russian friend, Roman Grynberg, he wrote, “Boring is the spring in Boston with its recalcitrantly green trees and yellow monotonous forsythias in garden plots. Oh, the porous snow in spring.” January 8, 1944, Bakh.
60 “I had to invent America”: SO, 26. N. spoke often of inventing places, inventing worlds, and this provocative locution, with its Promethean echoes, was in line with the modernist upending of naturalism. But in a less provocative sense, N. was underscoring his performance of a task shouldered by all novelists—all storytellers, for that matter: the investing of a locale with sufficient color and drama to interest and excite readers, leading to a feeling of familiarity and comprehension, as if now the place can be seen as it really is. That an observable reality may not exactly match the lineaments of a fictionalized ground does not much bother most readers; make-believe is allowed, in service to other truths. Faulkner’s comment, in a Paris Review interview of 1956, about realizing with Sartoris that “my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about,” and his witty signing of the hand-drawn map that he appended to Absalom! Absalom!—naming himself “Sole Owner & Proprietor” of fictional Yoknapatawpha County—were gestures not unlike Nabokov’s. See “Sketch Map of the Nabokov Lands in the St. Petersburg Region,” with N.’s trademark freehand butterfly. SM, 17.