Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977
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The main avenue in the Batovo park where according to my hypothesis Pushkin had his pistol duel with Ryleev in 1820 (see SPEAK, MEMORY, p. 62). The manorhouse was destroyed by fire in 1922.
TO: DIE PRESSE1
TL, (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux, 30 April 1969.
Dear editor-in-chief:
In the Presse of 25 April you published an article "Visite bei Vladimir Nabokov" by Werner Helwig.
I would like to make it clear that Herr Helwig did not visit me, although he claims to have done so. His "Interview" consists of sentences which he took from other, genuine interviews, from a number of his own inventions, and from three lines that my wife sent him in my behalf on the 28th of March 1969. These three lines had to do with Conrad, Gide and Mann and were in answer to the long and confused questionnaire that Herr Helwig had sent me and which I did not answer beyond that. I refused to enter into correspondence with Herr Helwig, and certainly never granted him an interview.
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: PROF. MATTHEW HODGART1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
May 12, 1969
Sir,
I do not really mind your introducing ridiculous errors (such as "at graze" instead of "at gaze" or the reference to Gardner—look up that passage in his book and index) all through your review of ADA, but I do object violently to your seeing in reunited Van and Ada (both rather horrible creatures) a picture of my married life. What the hell, Sir, do you know about my married life? I expect a prompt apology from you.
Vladimir Nabokov2
TO: JAMES LAUGHLIN
TLS (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
June 6, 1969
Dear Jay,
Thanks for that handsome edition of the Italian and Russian Medniy Vsadnik. ("Medniy" in that sense means "bronze", not "copper", pace Edmund Wilson).1
I have always been tempted to translate it, and about a dozen other Russian classics, into English but have decided that from now on I will translate only your obedient servant
V
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR
10 June 1969
CC, 1 p.
Montreux, Switzerland
Dear Frank,
I wish to report to you on my literary activities for the last six months.1
Much time was devoted to the correcting and recorrecting of the ADA proofs. This went well into February.
Work on the preparation of a collection of my poems, Russian and English, with English translations made in meter.
Work on an English translation of MASHENKA—the difficult bits, while the first draft of the entire book is being prepared by a translator in England.2
Notes for a new novel.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: ANDREW FIELD
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux, Palace Hotel, June 10th 1969
Dear Andrew,
I thank you for your FRACTIONS1 which I read very carefully. As I think you suspect yourself they don't quite make a whole number. I am sorry to be saying that but I am sure you would prefer a frank opinion to jejune compliments. Were I a reviewer, I would put it this way: This little novel seems to be a very mediocre desert up to Ager's arrival after which it ends in a first-rate mirage. It is rather like winning a tennis match 0–6, 0–6, 19–17, 6–3, 6–0.
I am sending you enclosed a xerox copy of a list of all my stuff at the L.C. The material will not be open to inspection until fifty years after my death. However, I have recently received from Prague three thick albums containing many of my things (including plays) collected by my mother in the twenties and thirties.
We have also made definite arrangements for the transfer of all our stuff stored in Ithaca from there to Montreux in October. I won der what Updike's reaction to some of the passages in your book will be. The albums and the material from Ithaca will be at your disposal when they will have been sorted out.
Cordial greetings from us both to you and Michele.
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: KIRK POLKING1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
June 13, 1969
Dear Mr. Polking,
My answer to your question "Does the writer have a social responsibility" is:
NO
You owe me ten cents, Sir.
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: PHILIP OAKES
TELEGRAM
Montreux, Switzerland
YOU MAY CHANGE FRAUD TO MEDIOCRITY OR NON-ENTITY BUT I EMPHATICALLY REFUSE TO HAVE THE POUND ITEM EXCISED1
NABOKOV
Vladimir Nabokov
June 18th 1969
TO: ELSIE TORRES1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Our address is:
Montreux Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
July 5th, 1969
Dear Mrs. Torres,
My husband asks me to reply to your letter of May 14th. You ask in it in which of the two possible places in the stacks—American or Russian Literature—he would like to be if he had to choose one. His answer is that he would prefer to be in the American Literature since his best work was done in English.
Sincerely yours,
(Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
TO: KENNETH TYNAN1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Permanent address:
Montreux Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
July 12th, 1969
Dear Mr. Tynan,
I have no interest whatever in pornography and cannot imagine myself being titillated by what I write.
I have no intention to contribute to the Grove Press anthology you describe.2 Sorry.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: NEW YORK TIMES
PRINTED STATEMENT1
Montreux, Switzerland
Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from terra ... these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known.... this is the only thing I can say about the matter ... the utilitarian results do not interest me.
TO: PHILIP OAKES
CC, 1 p.
Adclboden, August 12th, 1969
Hotel Nevada
Dear Mr. Oakes,
I must apologize for being so late in thanking you for The God Botherers,1 which got shipped back to Montreux by mistake and has been retrieved only now.
I greatly enjoyed your book. It is beautifully constructed and full of vivid details. I particularly liked the derelict chapel (68–69), looted dispensary (105), the full stop of the last shot (138), Bateman the spectator, his bark of laughter, its effect on the poodles (152), and the eminently satisfying end. Everything about the boy's levitation is admirable. I would have gladly had these remarks published had I not stopped writing reviews and endorsements many years ago.
Please in the next edition change "carpet of dew" (44) so that it does not spoil the splendid "carpet of watercress" in the next paragraph, and substitute "pupa" for "cocoon" (228), which does not "split" but is thrust open at one end.
Yours cordially,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
September 5, 1969
Dear Frank,
Very soon I shall send you several pages of notes (explaining trilingual puns, literary allusions, etc.) to be published as a commentary in the paperback edition, the proof of which I must, of course, see.1
Please tell me when the paperback edition of ADA is scheduled to appear (the later, of course, the better), but I have to get those notes off m
y chest, especially because I have to send them (in typescript) to my various translators who are either floundering badly or concealing their flounderings.
I will be posting to you the English Mashenka2 (Mariette—thus my third girl) in the course of the next three or four months. If I see that my revisions will take considerably more time than I expect now, then I shall saddle you with a rather satisfactory volume of poetry and/or a collection of literary essays.
Please, Frank, answer this letter soon.
Yours as ever,
Vladimir Nabokov
P.S.
We are very pleased with all that is happening to ADA. I hope you have not stopped to advertise her because this is the moment when she is clinging with her lovely fragile anterior limbs to the sixth rung of the ladder invaded by squabbling pornographers.
I am going to talk about her and me on Monday in an interview with James Mossman on the "Review" programme of the BBC-TV.
TO: Brother Joseph Chvala, C.S.C.1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
September 10, 1969
Dear Sir,
In reply to your letter of September 3, my husband asks me to tell you that he does not believe that an artist is responsible to society; he believes that an artist is responsible only to his own self.
Yours truly,
(Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux, Sept. 17th, 1969
Palace Hotel, Switzerland
Dear Frank,
Your edition of KOROL', DAMA, VALET is perfectly enchanting and I also thank you for the safe return of the original in such glowing health.
I have finished the prodigious job of annotating ADA myself. It is twenty five typescript pages long, I shall have it xeroxed today and I shall send you a copy immediately. You will notice that I included the very few little misprints of your first edition so as to have them all together in one place.
As to Appel's wish to write a "critical biography of VN" there is a snag, we must not forget that Andrew Field was to write my biography. I don't like turning down all Appel's projects but don't see how to reconcile the two biogs.
I am looking forward to the annotated LOLITA.
What happened to the de Liso negotiations?1
Bill McGuire (Princeton Univ. Press) tells me that you turned down the publication of a revised edition of my ONEGIN in paperback. It was a great disappointment, especially as he thought it was the right book for your educational department.
Here is a brief report on work in progress:
I finished annotating ADA (the book had to be reread twice).
Most of the poems have been translated now.
I am waiting for the English translator of MASHENKA to deliver his work so that I can revise it and incorporate prepared passages.
I am finishing an Introduction to MASHENKA. (Did I tell you that I've decided to entitle the book MARIETTE since I can't stand the English "mash" in the transliteration of the Russian title. Both are diminutives of Mary.)
Notes for the new novel are accumulating slowly. But I know exactly how many pages there will be: 250.2
We are wrestling with the troubles of the Italian translator of ADA. Mondadori have the fantastic plan of publishing the book in November.
Very cordial greetings from both of us.
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: PROF. ALFRED APPEL, JR.
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux Palace Hotel
October 8, 1969
Dear Alfred,
This is not the first time that our letters have telepathically crossed.
Thanks for the proofs of the verse and prose. There should be an apostrophe after n in Stihotvoren'ya and in "Clairouin" the "v" should be replaced by a "u".
The misprint "Backgrounds of A.A." is certainly delightful but I also notice some inaccuracies in your account of the Girodias business as far as it goes down that page.1 Ergaz did not "refer" me to him: she handled the matter alone. Nabokov did not "seem" not to know etc., he simply did not know anything at all, not having been in Europe since 1940. No illustrations were ever contemplated. For obvious reasons (Girodias having his own several versions) perfect exactitude is essential for me in this affair. You will find an exact record of it in my "Lolita and Mr. Girodias" (Evergreen, Feb. 1967) and the relevant passages (pp. 37–38) should be quoted rather than paraphrased.
Annotated ADA will have to wait a few years because—by another telepathic coincidence—I have just completed a 25-page long list of Notes for the first paperback edition.
A couple of years ago I received some photographs from Russia. I was later informed that publication might mean disaster to someone involved. Although I am fairly sure I did not send you any pictures from that batch—they are easily identified by a winter background—I don't want to take any chances. The two snapshots I mentioned in my last letter are of course quite innocuous, and so are the nine photographs you already have.
Would you consider granting me a favor? I would like to check for factual errors only any articles you have accepted for the Festschrift that might contain biographical data (e.g., Mrs. Leon's contribution).2 I know you are rather close to the deadline but I am a touchy pedant in these matters, and any misinformation would spoil all the pleasure.
Best greetings to you both and to little Karen in Miceland.
As ever,
Vladimir Nabokov
MASHENKA will not be published before 1970
KING, QUEEN, KNAVE: If not yet on sale, should be soon
Work in progress: Am, as usual, resurrecting old books and composing a new one.
TO: PROF. CARL R. PROFFER
TL (XEROX), 1 p
Montreux, Palace Hotel
Oct. 14, 1969
Dear Mr. Proffer,
Thank you for your letter, the two books, the Brodsky1 poem. "It contains many attractive metaphors and eloquent rhymes," says VN, "but is flawed by incorrectly accented words, lack of verbal discipline and an overabundance of words in general. However, esthetic criticism would be unfair in view of the ghastly surroundings and suffering implied in every line of the poem."
I am particularly grateful for sending those dungarees.2 Please tell me how much I owe you.
The two books that came back from Vienna were mailed to you a couple of days ago.
Karlinsky paid us a visit a week ago. We had interesting and amusing talks with him. He is a very brilliant and learned man, says VN.
Our very cordial greetings to you both.
(Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
TO: CHESSBOARD EDITOR, NEW STATESMAN1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
October 31, 1969
Sir,
I am sending you for publication a little "fairy" that I dedicated to E. Znosko-Borovsky on the 25th anniversary of his chess mastership. It appeared (under my old penname "V. Sirin") in the column which Znosko conducted in the Russian émigré daily Poslednie novosti (Dernières nouvelles), N 3891, Nov. 17, 1932, Paris. My problem is perhaps worth disintering from the dust of that periodical, extinct thirty years ago and impossible to obtain to-day.
Yours sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: CHARLES MONAGHAN1
TLS (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
Montreux, Switzerland
October 31, 1969
Dear Mr. Monaghan,
Mr. Vladimir Nabokov asks me to tell you that of all the books he happened to read in the course of 1969, he liked best
Tukio Tabuchi The Alpine Butterflies of Japan
Philip Oakes The God Botherers
Sam Beckett Molloy
Yours truly,
J. C.
Secretary to Vladimir Nabokov
TO: OLIVER CALDECOTT1
CC, 1 p.
Montre
ux, Palace Hotel
November 17, 1969
Dear Mr. Caldecott,
Thank you for your letter of Nov. 14th and the photocopy of your correspondence with Fawcett.
Your artist's Cyprideum looks like a ghastly vulva, and the Puss Moth caterpillar is all wrong (and, moreover, does not breed on orchids). I am emphatically against this symbolic design. I want three or four non-anatomical genuine orchids, prettily colored, garlanded around "A D A". Why don't you simply use the drawing of the three species I made for you—possibly multiplying and stylizing them (but not freudianizing those innocent blossoms)?