Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977
Page 44
p. 407: Mimo, chitatel' mimo (meaning "let us not stop, reader, at those sordid details" does occur in Turgenev's peevish piece ("Dovol'no," I think). And hrip is a hoarse wheeze, not a "snore" (which is hrap).
p. 418: "Priehali, skazal Ivan" comes straight from an Onegin variant (see my Commentary, vol. 2, p. 196, cancelled draft of One: LII:II)
p. 424: I was sorry that you—especially you—failed to recognize here the marvelously garbled echo of Okujava's moving melody: ... "Kogda trubach otboy sygraet ("Nadezhda, ya vernus' togda").
I am listing these minor points merely in the spirit of critical assistance in which the erudite authors of all the delightful papers in RLT collaborated to enlighten and entertain the student.
Another matter—referring to an extraordinary and virtually unanswerable letter that I have just received from a noble but not overbright writer in Russia—keeps puzzling me so much that I think I shall permit myself to seek your advice by-and-by.
Cordially yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: GORDON LISH1
TLS (XEROX), 1 p.
Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux
October 13, 1972
Dear Mr. Lish,
A kind correspondent has sent me an advertising supplement to The NY Times. Do I understand correctly that you are thinking of reprinting The Potato Elf in your 40th Anniversary Issue (Sep. 14, 1973)?
In preparing a collection of some of my Russian stories in English translation for McGraw-Hill I have had to retranslate entirely that Elf (first published in Russian in 1929).
The version by Serge Bertenson and Irene Kosinska in Esquire, Dec. 1939, is, alas, abominable, with innumerable errors, such as howlers, illiteracies, omissions, and so forth. It cannot be corrected, and must not be reprinted. My new translation, a very beautiful and faithful one, is scheduled to appear sometime next year in my publisher's collection of thirteen stories which is already in their hands. If you want the new, and lovely, Potato Elf, untouched by the Death's Head Moth of mistranslation, I would be delighted to have you prepublish it; but you should discuss the matter with McGraw-Hill. There is the question not only of dates but also of terms.2
Incidentally, I have not yet received the page proof (which I must absolutely see) of the xeroxed and galley bits of TRANSPARENT THINGS.3
I enjoyed immensely the last issue of Esquire. A humorous Russian friend of mine, upon being shown the cover, remarked that yes, many people nowadays contemplate their navel.4
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: NEW STATESMAN
PRINTED LETTER1
Sir, I protest against the following passage in Mr. Roy Fuller's review of D. J. Enright's Man is an Onion (NS, 24 November 1972): 'Enright ... is merciless about the pretentious and dishonest (see his pages on Nabokov).' I have seen them. Enright's treatment of my fiction conforms to a certain type of over-jocular criticism but contains nothing that might warrant an objection on ethical grounds. Mr. Fuller's statement, per contra, is a defamatory one, inasmuch as the term 'dishonest' can be construed as applying to me. Even supposing that your reviewer did not realise what he was saying, I believe, sir, that the NEW STATESMAN owes me an apology.
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
Palace Hotel
Montreux
TO: EDMUND WHITE1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
January 11, 1973
Dear Mr. White,
Many thanks for this beautiful New Year gift!2 You have never set eyes upon me, and yet, by a flash of inspiration, you chose from the portfolio my best likeness for the cover of the SR The Arts, Jan. 1973! All the other pictures are good too but I hope you realize that the one on p. 37 (Nabokov lives and works, zhivyot i rabotaet) mimicks marvelously a well-known formal of the author of "Aug. 14"3 and that the picture on p. 43 (poncho plus a dream of infinity) is a no less amusing parody of the Argentine dreamer.4 The NOM for MON is not your fault, but Snowdon's—I have a note from him apologizing for it.5 My only regret is that my profile did not come out very clearly in the P. and G. picture nor am I sure the upper part of the gal really belongs to those alabaster nates and legs—but, anyway, it is a gallant attempt to picture one of my most ancient and best known successes.6 As to the Of Mandarins and Maoists, The Esthetics of Bliss, The NFactor, Upright Among Staring Fish, A Personal View of N, and Russian Transparencies—I can only say that it is a rare treat for a writer to have, among fellow artists and scholars, such magnificent readers.7 My own article has been reproduced with a precision that in itself is a soft-beaming joy not often granted by editors.
Wishing you and your four-leaf clover every sort of good luck I remain
yours cordially,
Vladimir Nabokov
P.S. Best regards and thanks to John Poppy for his letter of December 28 and the five copies of the issue. I shall be happy to be his coexplorer on another expedition of this kind.
TO: KATHERINE FOX1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
January 24, 1973
Dear Mrs. Fox,
I thank you for your letter of 19 January telling me that the Times would like to buy an extract from TRANSPARENT THINGS2 starting at the beginning of page 3 and continuing to the end of page 19. I cannot agree, however, to the silent omission of the last sentence on p. 5 ("Let us now illustrate our difficulties") and to the dropping of Chapter Three (page 6 to 8). This Chapter Three is not only an integral part of the theme, but is the clue to the whole story. Its deletion would mean, among other things, that a reader who bought the book would skip the whole batch of 19 pages thinking that he had read them all in the Times, thus being cheated of an absolutely essential chapter.
On a similar occasion, in a different periodical, I suggested that not only suspension dots should mark the omission of a certain scene but that a note be appended saying that the suppressed passage would be sure to delight in due time the reader of the published book.
This is the only compromise I might accept.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: MARVER H. BERNSTEIN1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
January 26, 1973
Dear President Bernstein,
I was deeply touched by your letter of January 19 informing me that I was elected to receive an honorary degree from Brandeis University. I preserve and cherish the medal that the University awarded me in 1964.
It is embarrassing to have to decline your splendid offer. However, decline I must. Years ago I made the decision never to accept an honorary degree, i.e. a degree not earned by direct academic achievement at the university conferring it. All I have is my Cantab BA 1922, and that suffices. I know that many people, such as politicians, actors, foreign writers etc., do not apply this principle but I have been sticking to it for years and would be unable to renounce it now, even in the case of your offer, a particularly tempting one for me.
I entreat you to understand and excuse me.
Very cordially,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: DAN LACY1
TL (XEROX), 2 pp.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
January 31, 1973
Dear Mr. Lacy,
I thank you for your letter from The Caravanserai, of January 20. I hope you and Mrs. Lacy have thoroughly enjoyed your holiday.
To-day I can only try to answer the second part of your letter, pertaining to my literary plans.
The only two kinds of "butterfly books" that I could contemplate writing are: i. a learned work with a minimum of text and a maximum of colored photographs on the 400 species (and about 1500 subspecies) of European butterflies; this, however, would take three or four years to complete (I had begun it for Weidenfeld but for
various reasons the project was given up): this could hardly be a commercial success in the United States; and 2. a picture book, with notes, devoted to the evolution of butterfly painting from ancient times and through the Renaissance, to 1700, with reproductions of still-life pictures of flowers and insects by Dutch, Italian, Spanish, etc. masters. This is a fascinating, never-before attempted and not too complicated project (I have already collected more than a hundred samples) but it would mean your providing me with a photographer who could travel with me to several European picture galleries. I could probably finish the job within a couple of years.2
That takes care of the bugs.
A more definite plan is writing SPEAK, AMERICA a continuation of my "SPEAK, MEMORY".3 I have already accumulated a number of notes, diaries, letters, etc., but in order to describe my American years adequately I should need money to revisit several spots in America such as New York, Boston, Ithaca, The Grand Canyon, and a few other Western localities. About fifteen months in all would be required for completing that book which is now much clearer in my mind than it had been before. I would be careful not to hurt people, so that there would be no need to wait for everybody to die safely.
Three other projects are: a third (and last) collection of thirteen short stories;4 a revised translation of EUGENE ONEGIN, with only a few notes, in paperback for college students; a volume of my plays;5 certain parts of my university lectures on European literature;6 and, perhaps, an anthology of Russian poetry in my translation.
However, the principal and primary subject whose flushed cheek I am caressing to-day is a new novel,7 of about 240 typewritten pages (i.e. at least twice as long as TRANSPARENT THINGS). I shall start the actual writing of this new novel on March 1, and, with no interruptions, could finish it by the summer of 1974. It will be as lucid in the long run as all my other novels. Incidentally, I greatly enjoyed your witty criticism of readers who do not find me limpid enough. Yes, let them keep up with me, by all means, and not vice versa!
Please, do send a copy of your suggestions to Iseman. Neither my wife nor I could arrive at a clear understanding of the intricacies in the various possibilities you suggest. We are very dumb. She joins me in sending our very cordial greetings to you and your wife.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: IZHAK LIVNI1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
February 12, 1973
Dear Mr. Livni,
I don't have to tell you what ardent sympathy marks my feelings toward Israel and her 25th anniversary. I am not a public man, and the kind of article you want is completely outside my scope of ability. I can only extend my heartfelt congratulations to your young ancient great little country.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: ISRAEL SHENKER1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
February 23, 1973
Dear Mr. Shenker,
Miss Jill Krementz2 tells me in a letter of February 18 that your new book begins with an essay on me. I hope it is not a reprint of "The Old Magician at Home" (NYTR, Jan 9, 1972).3 You will remember I asked you to copyright its Q & A part in my name. In fact I am using that part in a forthcoming collection of my articles and interviews. The rest of the Old Magician piece contained certain inaccuracies and chit-chat items that rather upset me at the time. Here they are listed.
Bottom of first column: My wife's absence was indeed due to illness but it was not food poisoning.
Second column, top: I went alone to Anzère. Otherwise there would have been no point in my being given those two variants of one room. We would have taken two adjacent ones as we always do.
Third column: I write on 4 x 6 index cards, not 3x5.
My remarks about Solzhenitsyn and Bellow were not for print.
I was sorry you quoted me on Catholic converts, it was mere gossip, and Vidal's4 response, in that footnote, was silly and vulgar.
If my conjecture is wrong and the essay you propose to publish is a different one, in which you do not quote me at all, then I shall be glad to oblige you and have Miss Krementz come here for a photograph session between the 5th and 19th of March.
Yours cordially,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: ANDREW FIELD
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
February 26, 1973
Dear Andrew,
I have finished reading the typescript of your "Nabokov".1 At present my cards with corrections are in the process of being typed; there are 250 of them, which is more than I had expected. It was a great mistake on your part not to have shown me the chapters one by one.
I shall be able to mail you the result within a fortnight. Tell me, please, where to send it.
Best greetings,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: LORD SNOWDON
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotelb
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
March 22, 1973
Dear Tony,
Many thanks for the inscribed copy of your View of Venice.1 Such visions as the reversed garlands of wash hanging in the reflected sky of a canal or that shaggy dachshund straining in one direction and the pigeons walking in the other are both witty and poetic.
Cordially yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: SAUL STEINBERG
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
March 22, 1973
Dear Mr. Steinberg,
My wife and I thank you warmly for your inscribed Inspector album.1 One does not know what to single out for special praise—the prodigious nose-remover with nothing below the waist and no wonder; or the marvellous marchers (particularly the bunnydogs, the fat question mark, the many specimens of our old friend Alligator steinbergi); or the iridescent (albeit uncolored) I HAVE-AM; or the desperate DON'T (kicking an apostrophe is like kicking a kitten!); or the new girls (especially the recurrent young beauty consisting of horizontal shadings); or the frame house made so mysteriously opaque by the occlusion of N,O,P and Q; or the labyrinthiform person peering at the portrait of a fellow labyrinthian.
Your visit to Montreux was a long time ago, and we do hope that you will come again soon!
Best greetings from both of us.
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: SAMUEL ROSOFF
ALS (XEROX), 1 p.
Palace Hotel
Montreux
23 March 1973
Dear Mulya,
Sorry to have delayed so long thanking you for the crate of wonderful oranges, which Véra and I enjoyed enormously, mentioning your name daily! I am buried beneath a dull and complex task that has already kept me busy for more than two months: on January 16, Andrei Field, my "biographer," sent me his opus consisting of 680 typewritten pages. His version of my life has turned out to be cretinous. I have had to correct or delete hundreds of passages teeming with blunders and inventions of all kinds. He has now received my observations, or rather castigations, but has not yet replied.
Where and when [2 illegible words]? How is your family?
Keep well, dear friend. I embrace you and my wife sends greetings.
V1
TO: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
March 26, 1973
Dear Bill,
It was sad to hear about the chateau disaster,2 but much sadder to know that you were terribly ill. What was exactly the matter? How are you now? We have certainly missed you this winter.
Véra has been ill for more than two months. She had dreadful pains in the back, finally diagnosed as two slipped discs plus damage to a couple of other vertebrae. She is now much better.
<
br /> The National Review has been always a joy to read, and your articles in the Herald Tribune counteract wonderfully the evil and trash of its general politics.
Did the copy of TRANSPARENT THINGS I sent you through my publisher reach you? I did get the sumptuous Pound Era which you were so kind to send me.3 Though I detest Pound and the costume jewellery of his verse, I must say Kenner's approach is very interesting particularly when he discusses other writers of that era, and the real Chinese meaning of Uzura Pound's phony "Chinese."
Awaiting news from you, Véra and I send you and Pat our very best greetings.
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: FREDERIC W. HILLS1
TL (XEROX), 1 p.
Montreux-Palace Hotel
1820 Montreux, Switzerland
April 13, 1973
Dear Mr. Hills,
I thank you for your charming letter of April 5.
As I told Miss Murphy, when sending the text of STRONG OPINIONS, I had indeed planned to write an Introduction after the contents of the volume were definitely settled. I am most grateful to you for indicating the repetitions and boring parts of interviews to be weeded out.