Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977

by Vladimir Nabokov

  As I indicated to you on the telephone, screenplay writers are not the type of people to take such ideas as these and develop them into responsible story material. They are usually people who adapt other people's work. That is why I am by-passing them and coming direct to you—a story-teller.

  Kindest regards.

  Sincerely,

  Alfred J. Hitchcock1

  TO: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

  CC, 2 pp.

  Montreux, November 28, 1964

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Hitchcock,

  Many thanks for your letter. I find both your ideas very interesting. The first would present many difficulties for me because I do not know enough about American security matters and methods, or how the several intelligence bureaus work, separately and together.

  Your second idea is quite acceptable to me. Given a complete freedom (as I assume you intend to give me) I think I could turn it into a screenplay. But there would be the matter of time. What delays did you have in mind? I am at the present very busy winding up several things at once. I could devote some thought to the screenplay this summer but could hardly settle down to work on it yet. Please let me know what are your ideas about this.1

  In the meantime I, too, would like to give you a short resume of two ideas of my own. You will find them, very baldly jotted down, on the separate sheet attached to this letter. Please let me know what you think of them. If you like them, we might discuss their development.

  It was good talking to you on the telephone.

  With best wishes,

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  1.

  A girl, a rising star of not quite the first magnitude, is courted by a budding astronaut. She is slightly condescending to him; has an affair with him but may have other lovers, or lover, at the same time. One day he is sent on the first expedition to a distant star; goes there and makes a successful return. Their positions have now changed. He is the most famous man in the country while her starrise has come to a stop at a moderate level. She is only too glad to have him now, but soon she realizes that he is not the same as he was before his flight. She cannot make out what the change is. Time goes, and she becomes concerned, then frightened, then panicky. I have more than one interesting denouement for this plot.2

  2.

  While ignorant of the workings of the American intelligence, I have gathered considerable information regarding those of the Soviets.

  For some time now I have been thinking of writing the story of a defector from behind the Iron Curtain to the United States. The constant danger he is in, the constant necessity to hide and be on the lookout for agents from his native land bent on kidnapping or killing him.

  I would have this man meet a benevolent American couple who would offer him the security of their western ranch. But these would turn out to belong to certain pro-Soviet organizations and would betray him to his pursuers. I have in mind some marvellous scenes at the ranch and a very tragic ending.3

  TO: RAYMOND WALTERS, JR.1

  TELEGRAM, 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  NEAT LITTLE THINGS

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Le 8 decembre 1964

  TO: NEW STATESMAN

  PRINTED LETTER1

  Sir,—Such opportunities are too precious to be missed. The letter of a puzzled reader in your issue of 15 January2 reflects in an inkdrop a world of misconception—alas, far too common—in regard to the true purpose of translation. I cannot resist pointing out that the passages M. M. Carlin quotes represent in one case a paraphrase and in the other a faithful rendering of certain lines written by the Russian poet A. S. Pushkin, and that paraphrases (e.g. Miss Deutsch's "the rose, romantic flower") are apt to be more pleasing to ladies and gentlemen than a plain literal translation (e.g. 'romantic roses' for romanticheskje rozy).

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  Palace Hotel

  Montreux

  Switzerland

  TO: WILLIAM H. HOWE

  CC, 2 pp.

  Montreux, Jan. 25, 1965

  Dear Mr. Howe,

  I thank you very much for sending me a copy of your Our Butterflies and Moths1

  As an illustrator of lepidoptera you reveal a rare and splendid talent. Although some of the subjects of the watercolor paintings are strongly stylized, there is always a smiling brightness about them, and in certain cases the stylization brings out nicely an otherwise inconspicuous detail. Most of the black-and-white wash drawings of butterflies and moths in various stages are equally delightful (my only criticism here would be that in the settled butterflies the position of the legs in profile is not always correct). On the other hand, the drawings of non-entomological objects—and especially those deliberately "comic-strip" little people—are banal and irritating.

  My two main objections to the book are: The higgledy-piggledy arrangement of specimens and the enormous preponderance of common, showy species, sometimes repeated, among the North-American butterflies. The worthwhile youngster, the passionate novice (for whom your work is presumably meant) will demand first of all some kind of classification and comparison, and good pictures, of rare, drab, small, precious bugs. He cannot be expected to chase Papilio glaucus for very long. It is curious how authors and publishers of so-called "popular" butterfly books never seem to realize that the only reader who matters—the bright, eager, gifted boy (generally called "a sissy" by his schoolmates) will toss aside with bored disgust the book in which he cannot find that bizarre little thing he has just caught in a Vermont beechwood, or any of the Colias, Boloria and Plebeius that he sees in the willow bog of his Wyoming home. Why not figure for a change only the less known North-American butterflies?

  I refrain from dwelling on the text of your work; it is not on the level of the paintings. Your genuine enthusiasm seldom finds the right word, and your science errs not infrequently. I also cannot imagine what or who induced you to insert all those stale anecdotes, pseudo-Indian legends and samples of third-rate poetry (in this respect, old Dr. Holland2 was a notorious offender).

  Let me add in conclusion that instead of doing the rather bleak-sounding portfolio you plan—depicting feeding habits and migrations—your gifts entitle you to concentrate on something where art and science can really meet, such as an illustrated monograph on Polygonia or on the various races (both sexes and undersides) of Papilio indra (for a real thrill you should go one day to hunt the Grand Canyon subspecies).

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  PS. I have no special connection with the NY Times Book Review, but if they ask me, I can send them a copy of this letter, provided this is what you would like.

  TO: PROF. ROBERT C. WILLIAMS1

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  February 23, 1965

  Dear Mr. Williams,

  On my husband's request I acknowledge your letter of Feb. 6. My husband's heavy working schedule does not allow him to write any letters. Moreover, the range of your questions is so extensive that answering them would call for a very long letter indeed.

  The two questions in your paragraph one, for instance, cannot be answered in a few lines. The Russian emigrants in Berlin were divided into numerous discrete groups, and your questions would have to be answered for each of these groups separately.

  I can answer your question why the Nabokov family moved to Berlin from London. My husband's father was offered by two friends (A. Kaminka and J. Hessen) the editorship of "Rul". This meant to him both a forum on which to continue his struggle against bolshevism and a means of providing for his family. "Rul" was printed in the printing shop of Ullstein. It is more than probable that Ullstein lent also other support to the paper, but my husband has no precise information on this. Of the Ullstein group, Mr. Ross was closest to "Rul" and its publishers and editors. As far as we know, there was no link with the Mosse group ("Berliner Tageblatt").

  Personally, my husban
d had no contacts with any Germans at all and never learned, or tried to learn, the German language. For this he had reasons of his own. His books were offered to the Ullsteinverlag by his Russian language publishers ("Slovo"). His first two novels were published by Ullstein who had also been responsible for their prepublication in the " Vossische Zeitung". Some of his short stories were translated by various translators who had them published in various publications. Of these I remember "Berliner Tageblatt" and "Koelnische Zeitung". My husband had never any contacts with Gorkiy, the "Scythians", the "Smenovehovtsï", "Molodaya Rossiya" etc. The best Russian émigré review, from the moment of its inception and until it finally folded because of the war, was of course "Sovremennïye Zapiski" (I am sure you know this).

  Finally, Berlin was for several years the center of émigré literary (and political) activity for the simple reason that its Russian population at that time approached 200,000, the largest anywhere in Europe. Later, the center moved to Paris.

  I am sorry I cannot tell you more. I hope the above helps a little.

  Sincerely yours,

  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

  TO: BYRON DOBELL

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, April 9, 1965

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Dobell,

  I would be very grateful to you if you published the following little "Letter to the Editor" in your nearest issue:

  Sir,

  Miss Meeske (Memoirs of a Female Pornographer, Esquire, April 1965, p. 113), in describing the atmosphere of the Olympia Press office in Paris, remarks "I am sure Nabokov had to pass the wine cellar and climb up those rotting steps through the musty air." This is a gratuitous and grotesque assumption. I never climbed those rotting steps, I never visited the Olympia Press office, and I never met Mr. Girodias (several years ago, in Playboy magazine, April 1961,1 had the opportunity to deal with his contention that I had spoken to him once at a cocktail party).1

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Montreux, Switzerland

  With best wishes,

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: NEW STATESMAN

  CC, 1 p.1

  Montreux, April 11, 1965

  Palace Hotel

  Sir,

  I am sorry to continue this correspondence but I really have to clear up another misunderstanding. Judging by her letter in the New Statesman (April 9, 1965), I assume that Miss Deutsch has not read either my work on "Eugene Onegin" (and especially vol.2, pp. 491–2, where the very lines she quotes are discussed) or my reply to M.M. Carlin's letter. In that reply I was concerned with Pushkin's, not Miss Deutsch's, poetry.

  Now here is the text Miss Deutsch paraphrases in her letter:

  Zimal ... Krest'yanin, torzhestvuya,

  Na drotmyah obnovlyaet put';

  Ego loshadka, sneg pochuya,

  Pletyotsya r'ts'yu a-nibud'.

  The lexical translation is: "Winter!...Peasant, celebrating [the first snowfall], on drotmi [low sleigh without carriage body] inaugurates track; his little horse [of either sex; caressive diminutive; hence "naggy", which Miss Deutsch will find in Webster, unabridged, 1950, and elsewhere], snow having sensed [chuyat' applies to more senses than that of smell], shambles at trot any old way."

  This Miss Deutsch renders as:

  Here's winter ... The exultant peasant

  Upon his sledge tries out the road;

  His mare scents snow upon the pleasant

  Keen air, and trots without a goad.

  I will maintain on rack and block, with a saint's patience and a pedant's passion, that "pleasant keen air" and "without a goad" are not in Pushkin; that a Russian peasant does not prod his horse with a pointed stick; and that "exultant" and "mare" are common mistranslations. Let me add—since Miss Deutsch has seen fit to pun on my lame "naggy"—that I can also pun on her "mare". Paraphrases are related to the original text as dreams are to reality, and Miss Deutsch's version is little more than a nightmare.

  Yours truly,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: A. C. SPECTORSKY

  CC, 1 p.

  St. Moritz, July 4, 1965

  Suvretta House

  Dear Mr. Spectorsky,

  Your letter of June 25 has just arrived. My husband asks me to say that he is very happy that you are publishing DESPAIR, and that you like it so well.1

  You certainly may refer to the work as a "novel". This is exactly what my husband considers it to be.

  You could hardly call it "new". But my husband did revise the translation sentence for sentence, introduced many improvements and included a passage which was never published before. If you can think of some formula that would give you the most satisfaction while staying close to the actual facts, please tell us. My husband will do his best to accommodate you.

  It was indeed the first of my husband's novels that he himself translated, although LAUGHTER IN THE DARK that he translated immediately afterwards had already been published in the US in 1938 (Bobbs-Merrill). DESPAIR, however, came out in England in 1937 (John Long).

  Finally: the title. The idea of changing it does not appeal to my husband very much. But he understands your problem. Do you have some title in mind that would make PLAYBOY feel happier?)*

  Please note the new address at which we shall stay for several weeks. Letters mailed to Montreux will be forwarded and will also reach us.

  With best wishes,

  Sincerely,

  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

  TO: BARBARA EPSTEIN

  CC, 1 p.

  St. Moritz, July 8, 1965

  Suvretta House

  Dear Barbara,

  I wired you yesterday "Please reserve space in next issue for my thunder." Here it is.1 For reasons I explain, I have limited my reply to refuting the "Russian" part of Edmund Wilson's article. Its offensive tone compels me to be quite ruthless in regard to his linguistic incompetence. On the other hand, though well aware of the real reason behind this attack, I consider this reason far too sad and private to be aired in print.

  I must beg you to publish my reply in full. Since you were not too shocked by some of Edmund's epithets, you ought not to be shocked by mine; and anyway I rely on your journal's spirit of freedom and fair play.

  I would certainly like to see the proofs but if there is no time to shuttle them across, then I would prefer a very careful proofreader's checking them against my text to any postponement of its publication. But do try to get them to me—there are lots of pitfalls.2

  Cordially yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  PRINTED LETTER.1

  To the Editors:

  As Mr. Wilson so justly proclaims in the beginning of "The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov," we are indeed old friends.

  I fully share "the warm affection sometimes chilled by exasperation" that he says he feels for me. In the 1940s, during my first decade in America, he was most kind to me in various matters, not necessarily pertaining to his profession. I have always been grateful to him for the tact he showed in refraining from reviewing any of my novels. We have had many exhilarating talks, have exchanged many frank letters. A patient confidant of his long and hopeless infatuation with the Russian language, I have always done my best to explain to him his mistakes of pronunciation, grammar, and interpretation. As late as 1957, at one of our last meetings, we both realized with amused dismay that despite my frequent comments on Russian prosody, he still could not scan Russian verse. Upon being challenged to read Eugene Onegin aloud, he started to do this with great gusto, garbling every second word and turning Pushkin's iambic line into a kind of spastic anapest with a lot of jaw-twisting haws and rather endearing little barks that utterly jumbled the rhythm and soon had us both in stitches.

  In the present case, however, things have gone a little too far. I greatly regret that Mr. Wilson did not consult me about his perplexities (as he used to do in the past) instead of lurching into print in such a state
of glossological disarray. Some time later I plan to publish a complete account of the bizarre views on the art of translation which have been expressed by some critics of my work on Pushkin. Mr. Wilson's article in The New Yor Review of Booths of July 15, 1965, will then receive all the friendly attention it deserves. The main object of this preliminary note is to undeceive credulous readers who might assume that Mr. Wilson is an expert in Russian linguistics. Here are some of the ghastly blunders he makes in his piece.

  1. "Why," asks Mr. Wilson, "should [Nabokov] call the word netu 'an old-fashioned and dialect form' of net. It is in constant colloquial use and what I find one usually gets for an answer when one asks for some book in the Soviet bookstore in New York."

  Mr. Wilson mistakes the common colloquial netu, which means "there is not," "we do not have it," etc., for the obsolete netu which he has never heard and which, as I explain in my note, is a form of net in the sense of "not so" (the opposite of "yes"). If Mr. Wilson had continued "All right, but can you get me that book?" and if the shopman had replied "netu" instead of net, only then would my friend's attempt to enlighten me be not as ludicrous as it is now.