Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977

by Vladimir Nabokov

  2. "The character ... called and pronounced yo—but more like 'yaw' than as [N.] says like the 'yo' in 'yonder'...."

  I do not think Mr. Wilson should try to teach me how to pronounce this or any other Russian vowel. The "yaw" sound he suggests is grotesque and quite wrong. It might render, perhaps, the German-Swiss affirmative ("yaw-yaw") but has nothing to do with the Russian "yo" pronounced, I repeat, as in "yonder." I can hear Mr. Wilson (whose accent in Russian I know so well) asking that bookseller for Myawrtvie Dushi instead of the correct Myortvie Dushi (Dead Souls).

  3. "Vse and vsyo, the former of which is 'all' applied to people and the latter 'all' applied to things."

  This is a meaningless pronouncement. Vse is merely the plural of ves' (masculine), vsya (feminine) and vsyo (neuter). Examples: vse veshchi, "all things," vse lyudi, "all men," vsyo naselenie, "all the population"; vse hlopayut, "all applaud," vsyo hlopaet, "all the audience applauds." Eto vse ego oshibki? "Are these all his mistakes?" Net, ne vse, "No, not all."

  4. "Pushkin is always shifting these stresses [i.e., "the main stresses in the often so long Russian words"]."

  Pushkin does nothing of the kind. We have in Russian a few words that can be, or could be in Pushkin's day, accented in two different ways, but this has nothing to do with prosody. The "always shifting" is a pathetic, but quite nonsensical, grumble.

  5. "What does [N.] mean when he speaks of Pushkin's 'addiction to stuss'? This is not an English word, and if he means the Hebrew word for nonsense which has been absorbed into German, it ought to be italicized and capitalized. But even on this assumption it hardly makes sense...."

  This is Mr. Wilson's nonsense, not mine. "Stuss" is the English name of a card game which I discuss at length in my notes on Pushkin's addiction to gambling. Mr. Wilson should have consulted my notes (and Webster's dictionary) more carefully.

  6. "His poor horse sniffing the snow, attempting a trot, plods through it."

  This is Mr. Wilson showing me how to translate properly ego loshad^a, sneg pochuya, pletyotsya rïs'yu kak-nibud' (which in my correct literal rendering goes "his naggy, having sensed the snow, shambles at something like a trot"). Mr. Wilson's version, besides being a gross mistranslation, is an example of careless English. If, however, we resist the unfair temptation of imagining the horse plodding through its own trot (which is rather what Mr. Wilson is trying to do here), and have it plod through the snow, we obtain the inept picture of an unfortunate beast of burden laboriously working its way through that snow, whereas in reality Pushkin's lines celebrate relief, not effort! The new snow under the sleigh facilitates the horse's progress and is especially welcome after a long snowless autumn of muddy ruts and reluctant cartwheels.

  7. "That [i.e. N.'s translation 'having sensed'] would be pochuyav, not pochuya [which Mr. Wilson thinks should then be 'sensing']. Where is our [i.e., N.'s] scrupulous literalness?"

  Right here. Mr. Wilson is unaware that despite the different endings, pochuyav and pochuya happen to be interchangeable, both being past gerunds and both meaning exactly the same thing ("having sensed"). Compare zametiv and zametya, which both mean "having noticed," or uvidev and uvidya, which both mean "upon seeing."

  Let me stop here. I suggest that Mr. Wilson's didactic purpose is defeated by the presence of such errors (and there are many more to be listed later), as it is also by the strange tone of his article. Its mixture of pompous aplomb and peevish ignorance is certainly not conducive to a sensible discussion of Pushkin's language and mine.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Montreux, Switzerland

  TO: PROF. GLEB STRUVE

  TL, 1 p.

  Hoover Institution.

  Montreux, October 4, 1965

  Dear Gleb Petrovich,

  My wife and I thank you for Mandelshtam's1 poems. The poems are marvelous and heartrending, and I am happy to have this most precious volume on my bedside shelf.

  As to Field,2 the errors of his that you mention are monstrous, of course, but not any worse than the "symbols" that Wilson (and a recent Briton) discover in Zhivago.

  Besides, Field's book3 will, for the most part, be about my English writings.

  I shake your hand,

  Vladimir Nabokov4

  TO: LYNDON B. JOHNSON

  TELEGRAM

  WISHING YOU A PERFECT RECOVERY AND A SPEEDY RETURN TO THE ADMIRABLE WORK YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING1

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  V. Nabokov, Palace Hotel, Montreux

  Le 9 octobre 1965

  TO: SAUL STEINBERG1

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, October 18, 1965

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Steinberg,

  We have just received your magic ledger "The New World."2 Everything in it is a delight—the curlicues of genius, the patch on the C of "Etc" in the lower queue, the wonderful balancing acts of fractions, the performance of trained numerals, St. George spearing the Mis-sum or attacking the attackers of his prey, the dreamlife of wayward cubes and circles, chairs and dogs, the peacock arrows, the activities of speech balloons and question marks, the lepidopterist tiptoeing toward the unknown species, the gentleman doffing his Steinberg to Pi, the animated volutes, cornucopias, alphabets, labyrinths, the museum barrier between the master and his future masterpiece, the catman teaching refridgeometry; and his garden of vignettes.

  My wife joins me in gratitude and admiration.

  Yours ever,

  PS. Please, do come and see us when you are again in Europe.

  TO: BARBARA EPSTEIN

  CC, 1 p.

  October 30, 1965

  Montreux, Palace Hotel

  Dear Barbara,

  I notice that you continue to print the letters of ignorant nincompoops who cuddle up to Edmund Wilson.

  I am completing an article of about the Wilson article's length dealing exhaustively with his carps and quibbles as well as with various items connected with it. I think it is important that it should be printed in the same place and reach the same readers as the previous detractions.

  I am not sure I could mail it in time for the next issue (vol. 5, No. 7) but you will certainly get it in time for your vol. 5, No. 8. Please let me know if you can save for me the necessary space in that issue, since I consider it essential to get rid of the matter as soon as possible.

  Love from us both to you all.

  Yours ever,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: BARBARA EPSTEIN

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Nov. 8, 1965

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Barbara,

  Many thanks for your very kind telegram.

  I am now sending you a copy of my article (entitled Appendix 3) dealing with the various reviews of my EO, and especially with Edmund Wilson's.

  I have marked with a wavy line in the margin (so as not to mess up the main copy) the passages which appeared in the preliminary rejoinder you published and which need not be repeated in your journal.

  The article (including those passages) will also appear in a British periodical. In this connection, I would like you to tell me if you have any preferences as to dates—synchronized? later? earlier?

  I have written the damn thing rather rapidly—am sick of the whole business and want to get it off my chest as soon as possible.

  The bit about Magarshack's English I could not check, see if you have it in your tall library, and if he is the offender, please stet the sentence ("Magarshack's English, I believe") that I have crossed out.

  It is of course quite essential that I should see the galleys.

  Love from us both.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: ROBERT HUGHES1

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Nov. 9, 1965

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Hughes,

  Thanks for the copy of the transcript which I am mailing back with my deletions. Please return this copy to me after use.

  Pages 1–9 are wonderful (the passage about the critics can be retained), a
nd that takes care of at least twenty minutes of talk. Pages 52–54 are also good, and, with the action, they provide at least ten more minutes. The rest (pp. 10–51) is pretty awful, and a lot must be deleted.

  I am greatly distressed and disgusted by my unprepared answers—by the appalling style, slipshod vocabulary, offensive, embarrasing statements and muddled facts. These answers are dull, flat, repetitive, vulgarly phrased and in every way shockingly different from the style of my written prose, and thus from the "card" part of the interview. I always knew I was an abominably bad speaker, I now deeply regret my rashness, and in fact must apologize for yielding so foolishly to the mellow atmosphere of your Glion terrace. I have kept what I managed to stomach of this spontaneous rot, but shall be grateful to you if you make still heavier cuts in that section. A number of answers had to be obliterated entirely. In some cases it seemed a pity because I would have expressed it so well, so concisely, if I had written it down beforehand. But that does not matter much now—you have plenty of material without the deleted pages.2

  I am enclosing a copy of the bibliography.

  I am terribly sorry if my extensive cuts are causing you any disappointment, but I am sure you will understand that after all I am almost exclusively a writer, and my style is all I have.

  With best regards from my wife and me.

  Sincerely,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: BARBARA EPSTEIN

  TELEGRAM

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Terribly sorry must withdraw article was without news three weeks stop too late now greetings1

  Nabokov

  Vladimir Nabokov

  1-er decembre 1965

  TO: NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS1

  CC, 1 p.

  In a recent issue a correspondent alludes to the French rhyme:

  Cet animal est très méchant:

  Quand on l'attaque, il se défend.2

  For the benefit of my learned friends, I have devised 1. a paraphrase in English, 2. a fairly close English version, and 3. a very close Russian translation:

  1.

  This animal is very wicked:

  Just see what happens if you kick it.

  2.

  This beast is very mean: in fact

  It will fight back, when it's attacked.

  3.

  Zhivôtnoe sié—prezlôe sushchestvô:

  Oboronyâetsya, f(pï trôgayut evô.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Montreux

  TO: BUD MACLENNAN1

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, February 8, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Miss MacLennan,

  I thank you for your two letters, both of February 4.

  Dial Press: My husband would appreciate your giving them the permission to use the quotations they ask for in Page Stegner's book ESCAPE INTO AESTHETICS: THE ART OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV, for the British Commonwealth, gratis. The American rights have already been granted.

  Paperback rights DESPAIR and THE EYE: My husband agrees to Panther's offer with regard to THE EYE but he rather thinks it too early to dispose of the paperback rights of DESPAIR since this work has not even appeared in full in the Playboy yet. He would prefer to wait until publication.

  THE GIFT, jacket design: This is one of the things on which my husband makes his own decisions. In the present case he asks me to say the following:

  "The design for the jacket seems to me tasteless in the extreme. The only symbol a broken butterfly is of is a broken butterfly. Moreover, there is a grotesque clash between that particular peacock butterfly (which does not occur in the St. Petersburg region) and the Petersburg spring poem, while, on the other hand, in regard to the explorer father the peacock butterfly is pretty meaningless because it is one of the commonest butterflies in Asia, and there would have been no point in rigging up an expedition to capture it. The girl does not look like Zina Mertz at all. The entire conception is artistically preposterous, wrong and crude, and I cannot understand why they are not using the subtle and intelligent sketch I sent them, with the keys on the floor of the hall."2

  I am sorry that he should feel so strongly about this, but he does.

  Sincerely yours,

  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

  PS. My husband reminds me that I forgot to say the quotations for the back cover are O.K. with the exception of the line on Doctor Zhivago, a book which he considers wholly without literary merit.

  TO: MELVIN J. LASKY

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Feb. 11, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Lasky,

  My husband thanks you for the opportunity offered to answer Edmund Wilson's letter.1 He does not think that pitiful little letter rates a rejoinder.

  He thanks you again for the hospitality of your columns.

  Sincerely yours,

  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

  TO: ENCOUNTER

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  February 18, 1966

  The couplets Mr. Lowell1 refers to are not at the end but at the beginning of PALE FIRE. This is exactly the kind of lousy ignorance that one might expect from the mutilator of his betters—Mandelshtam, Rimbaud and others.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: MELVIN J. LASKY

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, February 22, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Lasky,

  If it is not too late, disregard please my reply to Lowell's drunken lunge and insert the following lines instead:

  To the Editor:

  I do not mind Mr. Lowell's disliking my books, but I wish he would stop mutilating his betters—Mandelshtam, Rimbaud, and others. I regret not having entitled my article "Rhyme and Punishment."

  Vladimir Nabokov1

  Greetings.

  TO: L. QUINCY MUMFORD1

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, March 3, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Mumford,

  I wish to tell you first of all how deeply honored I feel by the invitation in your letter of February 21 to serve as Honorary Consultant in American Letters.

  With reluctance and regret, I must decline this honor. I lack the necessary energy and aptitude to be of any practical use to the Library. I would not be able to acquit myself properly even of the very limited duties you outline; and my conscience forbids me to accept your offer while knowing that I should not be able to force myself to write a single letter or read a single book beyond those that nature compels me to write or read. Let me add that I lead a very secluded life and have very little contact with either American or foreign writers.

  Thank you again for having thought of me.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: MELVIN J. LASKY

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, March 3, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Lasky,

  Many thanks for letting me see Lowell's second version. This is great fun. I suppose he has now realized how dangerous my reaction to the vulgar and irrelevant remarks in his first letter might have been. I now append my third, and final, reply.

  Cordially yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  To the Editor:

  Mr. Lowell's intuitional (but hardly commonsensical) arithmetic cannot interest me since he does not know Pushkin's language and is not equipped to tackle the special problems of translation discussed in my article. I wish though (as intimated therein) that he would stop mutilating defenceless dead poets—Mandelshtam, Rimbaud, and others.

  Vladimir Nabokov1

  TO: MELVIN J. LASKY

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, March 3, 1966

  Palace Hotel

  Dear Mr. Lasky,

  I sent you today my third version of a reply to Lowell's second version. The present letter refers to a totally different matter.

  Some time ago, in the Olympia Reader and in the Evergreen review, Maurice Girodias made a number of misstate
ments in his account of our "strained relations." I have prepared an article of eleven typewritten pages, "Lolita and Mr. Girodias" in which I put matters straight. My lawyer has approved it. Please let me know if you would consider publishing it in Encounter.1

  Cordially yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: MELVIN J. LASKY

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, April 4, 1966

  Palace Hotel