Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977
Page 17
Theatre. In my painfree moments I have been re-reading a number of Russian plays. Unfortunately, all those that are worth translating are in verse (Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Blok), a fact I had entirely overlooked. This project will have to be shelved—for the time being at least.
Language book. I am afraid, this project does not interest me as I am interested in literary matters only. Thank you, anyway, for asking me. It sounds very good, but I just don't have the time for this sort of thing.
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: PASCAL COVICI
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY.
August 29, 1955
Dear Pat,
I am sending you the complete book under the provisional title of MY POOR PNIN.
I hope you will like it. I realize, however, that the MS is shorter than you expected. There is nothing I can do about this: books set their own limits, as you surely know, and any more chapters would be nothing but padding, adding nothing to characterization or plot. I may do another book on Pnin later on but it would have to be set in entirely new surroundings.
Should the length prove a major consideration, and should you want the agreement cancelled and your money returned, I would accept your decision, of course.
I would like to hear soon from you.
With best wishes,
Sincerely,
PS. The New Yorker has bought Chapter 4; Ch. 5 was too functional for them, and I don't know yet their reaction to Chapters 6 and 7.
TO: PASCAL COVICI
CC, 2 pp.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY.
September 29, 1955
Dear Pat,
I am glad you like the book, and nothing would please me better than to have it published by you.1
The question of money is a minor one. I do not agree with your definition: it certainly is not a collection of sketches. But it is much shorter than you had the right to expect, and I shall accept a reduction of the advance, but would like you to set aside a substantial sum for publicity.
The other question you raise is much more important. When I began writing PNIN, I had before me a definite artistic purpose: to create a character, comic, physically inattractive—grotesque, if you like—but then have him emerge, in juxtaposition to so-called "normal" individuals, as by far the more human, the more important, and, on a moral plane, the more attractive one. Whatever Pnin is, he certainly is least of all a clown. What I am offering you is a character entirely new to literature—a character important and intensely pathetic—and new characters in literature are not born every day.
Throughout the years I worked at this book, I discarded many vistas that opened before me, abandoned many alluring but unnecessary sub-plots and generally pared my material to the bone, eliminating everything that was not strictly justified in the light of art. I am saying this in order to stress with absolute finality that I cannot tamper with either the plot or the construction of the thing.
To be specific:
There is no confusion about Pnin's addresses, and I can send you a complete consecutive list of them.
The beginning of Ch.3, you say, anticipates Ch.2, but then goes beyond it. Why should it not?
We can't know more about Victor. By the end of the book he is fifteen, and is in Italy with his mother.
By the end of the "summer camp" chapter every bit of meaning has been squeezed out of it.
If you turn to p.161, you'll find the mangy little dog introduced for the very purpose of having him exit from Waindell in Pnin's car and exchange glances with the cocker whom the "I" of the story has taken along on his morning ramble—while Pnin does not notice his friend.
It is an absolute necessity for me to concentrate on Victor in Ch. 4, and to introduce "myself' in Ch.7.
On the other hand, I shall be glad to submit to you a complete calendar of Pnin's life (I have one), a list of his consecutive addresses and any other information you may want. I shall be glad to eliminate unnecessary repetitions, if any, and to correct all slips of grammar or punctuation.
Only one major change is possible: I have in my MS an alternate ending for Ch. 6—two paragraphs that take the place of the passage wherein Pnin writes his letter to Hagen. Both endings are equally satisfying to me. I sent you the one that seemed more amusing, but you can have your choice.
One more consideration. You seem to regret that the book is, as you put it, "not a novel". I do not know if it is or not. According to popular definitions, the main thing it seems to lack is length. What is a novel? Is Sterne's Sentimental Journey Through France a novel? Is Proust's Sentimental Journey Through Time a novel? I do not know. All I know is that PNIN is not a collection of sketches. I do not write sketches. But must we pigeonhole him into any kind of category?
I would like to have your reaction to this letter before I go into further details. If you would like me to come to New York to discuss the matter viva voce, I could do so in the first half of October. I shall be glad to consider any minor details that may bother you, but unless you can publish the book as it is please feel free to reject it—though, of course, I would very much regret this.
Cordially yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
I am still recovering from a severe attack of lumbago and am dictating this letter to my wife.
TO: PASCAL COVICI
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY.
October 29, 1955
Dear Pat,
Many thanks for your letter. I will be glad to come and have lunch with you, Malcolm Cowley and Marshall Best, if you think I can convince you and them that adding anything whatsoever to my book would mean padding (and therefore spoiling) it. Before we meet, I would like to know if you would still want the book under these circumstances. If you do, I will be glad to come and discuss any details that seem repetitive or not clear to you (though I may ask you to pay my traveling expenses).
On the other hand, if you are convinced that the book needs major alteration and that without it you would rather not publish it, please do me the favor to say so quite frankly and without further ado, and we shall cancel the agreement, and remain good friends. And I shall, of course, reimburse you.1
With kindest regards,
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: KATHARINE A. WHITE
CC, 1 p.
Ithaca, N.Y.
24 November 1955
Dear Katharine,
Your decision has distressed me1 I look back at our cloudless association and it is most painful to think that it will be different from now on. Your kindness, your gentleness and understanding have always meant so much to me. On the other hand, I cannot help realizing that the pace and concentration of your work must have claimed sacrifices and involved a strain that could not be kept up for ever.
It was a great pleasure for both of us to see you in the halls of the New Yorker. We cherish your personal friendship and look forward to many happy meetings with you.
I thank you for promising me your continued sympathy and support in the New Yorker. To my regret, I don't think I can have anything to show you in the course of the next six weeks, since I am working fiercely on the last batch of commentaries for my "Eugene Onegin".
I shall make it a point to let you know well in advance of a possible visit to New York so that we might have the opportunity to discuss any matter in which I might be of use to you. I suspect that I may be coming to New York in the course of the winter either in connection with my books or to make a record of "Onegin" that I promised to the BBC.
Our love to both of you.
Yours ever,
TO: CASS CANFIELD1
CC, 1 p.
Ithaca, N.Y.
8 December 1955
Dear Mr. Canfield,
I am glad to show you my book on Pnin. Please note that it is not a novel in any routine sense. It is a short book—180 pages (typescript), divided into seven chapters, four of which (Chapters One, Three, Four and Six) have appeared in the New Yorker.
Each of the seven chapters is concerned with a separate incident in Pnin's life at Waindell College, until he is fired. All these chapters, although slanted and illumined differently, fuse to form a definite unity at the end.
In Pnin, I have created an entirely new character, the like of which has never appeared in any other book. A man of great moral courage, a pure man, a scholar and a staunch friend, serenely wise, faithful to a single love, he never descends from a high plane of life characterized by authenticity and integrity. But handicapped and hemmed in by his incapability to learn a language, he seems a figure of fun to many an average intellectual, and it takes a Clements or a Joan Clements to break through Pnin's fantastic husk and get at his tender and lovable core. It is this combination of the grotesque and the gentle that makes him so pleasingly bizarre. And this is also what apparently endeared him so much to the readers of the New Yorker. I have never had so much fan mail from readers with my other stories as I had with the four Pnin chapters.
There is an intricate interplay in recurrence of themes throughout the book that can be appreciated only if read carefully. I hope you will read MY POOR PNIN yourself; or, if it must be read by some of your readers, that you will pick some sensitive and intelligent people for this task.
From the response the published chapters have had so far, I am convinced that this book may have a bright commercial success, if launched properly.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: KIRILL NABOKOV
ALS, 1 p.
Cambridge, Mass.
29 February 1956
Dorogoy Kirill,
It was most kind of you to send me those viatic details and amiable suggestions. Various (tedious) considerations have made us postpone the trip [to Europe]—till next summer, at least. We shall probably go to California in April to hunt butterflies.
Your remarks concerning LOLITA are by far the most intelligent and artistic ones yet made about the poor child.
Dmitri finished Harvard last year, and stands over 6'5" in his socks. He has an admirable bass voice and an MG racing car.
We are staying here for another month, so as to be near the Harvard Library. I am finishing a huge book on EUGENE ONEGIN. My Russian stories are to be published next month by the Chekhov Publ. House, and the French translation of my memoirs is coming out in Paris sometime in autumn.
Was it November?—yes, I think it was November last year: in the course of a polemic Russian exchange in Novoe Russkpe Slovo1 involving Yanovski, Marc Slonim and Kuskova,2 you were mentioned as one of the gifted poets of the Prague group in the old days. Have you written anything lately?
Sincères amitiés to both of you from us both.
Tvoy V.
PS. We shall remain here for another month but my permanent address remains (please note): Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University (not Campbell) Ithaca (not Itaca), NY.
TO: MORRIS BISHOP
TLS, 1 p. Mrs. Morris Bishop.
16 Chauncy St.
Cambridge
6 March 1956
Dear Morris,
It was a pleasure to receive your letter and that drab little view of Nice 1906. Thanks also for depositing the check. We hope to see both of you here. In a few minutes we are setting out for New York, where I shall make to-morrow a recording of "ONEGIN", Canto One, for the BBC's Third Program. We plan to be back Thursday night.
I have just learned that Gallimard wants to publish LOLITA. This will give her a respectable address. The book is having some success in London and Paris. Please, cher ami, do read it to the end!
Frankly, I am not much concerned with the "irate Paterfamilias". That stuffy philistine would be just as upset if he learned that at Cornell I analyze "ULYSSES" before a class of 250 students of both sexes. I know that LOLITA is my best book so far. I calmly lean on my conviction that it is a serious work of art, and that no court could prove it to be "lewd and libertine". All categories grade, of course, into one another: a comedy of manners written by a fine poet may have its "lewd" side; but "LOLITA" is a tragedy. "Pornography" is not an image plucked out of context; pornography is an attitude and an intention. The tragic and the obscene exclude each other.
You know all this as well as I do—I am just jotting down these remarks at random because you happened to conjure up the possibility of an attack.
We are both very much interested in Alison's1 exhibition. You will have to tell us all about it.
Best love to all three of you.
V
TO: PASCAL COVICI
CC, 1 p.
I am on sabbatical leave and shall stay at Cambridge until mid-April, after which I shall go to California until fall.
16 Chauncy Street
Cambridge, Mass.
29 March 1956
Dear Pat,
Thanks for your kindly letter.1 I do not think there is any cause for concern. LOLITA is doing very well. I have already signed a contract with Gallimard for the French rights, and a large piece of it will appear in the Nouvelle Revue Française. There is a good chance, moreover, of its being published in this country.
As a friend and one of the few people who have read the book, you will, I am sure, slap down such rumormongers as contend that the book is pornographic. I know that LOLITA is my best book so far. Calmly I lean on my conviction that it is a serious work of art, and that no court could prove it to be "lewd and libertine". All categories grade, of course, into one another: a comedy of manners written by a fine poet, or a satirical poem in the genre of Pushkin's "Gavriliad", may have its "lewd" side; but LOLITA is a tragedy. Pornography is not an image plucked out of context. Pornography is an attitude and an intention. The tragic and the obscene exclude one another.
I don't say anything about PNIN but may have something to tell about him another time.
As ever,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: JASON EPSTEIN
CC, 1 p.
Mt. Carmel, Utah
May 25, 1956
Dear Mr. Epstein,
Your letter of May 3 has caught up with me at the above address. I expect to remain here for about two months.
The translation of "A Hero of Our Times" is practically finished. I am going over it now and expect to have it retyped for you by July. It is going to be the first exact translation of this curious book. When the typescript is ready, I shall confer with you about a few brief notes to the translation.
I shall have completed my "Eugene Onegin" by September.
I shall be glad to enter into an agreement with you concerning a translation (with a few commentaries essential for students) of Anna Karenin. It would be based in the main on the Garnett version, with all the blunders corrected, and with all the images and special Tolstoyan locutions faithfully restored. Let me know your reaction to this plan.
Let me confess that your suggestion about a book on butterflies appeals to me tremendously. It would contain my adventures with leps in various countries, especially in the Rocky Mountains states, the discovery of new species, and the description of some fantastic cases of adaptation. I think I could achieve a perfect blend of science, art and entertainment.
My wife and I have rented a beautiful little cottage here, in a strategic position between the Grand Canyon, Sion and Bryce National Parks. We plan to move to Maine in about two months: Dmitri has a singing engagement with the Arundel Company in Kennebunk Port.
Best regards from both of us.
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
P.S. Viking, after long consideration, has turned down my "My Poor Pnin", claiming it is not a novel—which is right. I claim it is a complete work, whatever label be attached to it. Would you like to have a look at it? About half of it appeared in the "Ne
w Yorker".1
TO: JASON EPSTEIN
CC, 1 p.
Mt. Carmel, Utah
June 13, 1956
Dear Mr. Epstein,
Many thanks for your friendly letter and kind suggestions.
A couple of days ago I shipped to you MY POOR PNIN. In case you decide not to publish it, could you please keep the MS until I return East.
I want to ask you to allow me a little more time for pondering the butterfly book.1 Your conditions suit me; but before definitely committing myself I would like to evolve a precise plan for the book and can only do so after Lermontov is out of the way. When I get back to Cornell, where my papers are, I shall show you some of my own drawings illustrating my theories regarding wing patterns in butterflies.