Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977

by Vladimir Nabokov

  On the other hand, if you cannot reproduce, or don't wish to bother with, the reproduction of an elegant old-fashioned vignette for my elegant old-fashioned novel, with delicate contours and tender tints, then I would prefer you to cancel all idea of a pictorial design, and replace it with plain lettering. Just my name and ADA would be enough.

  I am sorry to be so fiercely meticulous in these matters but I have been so pleased with your final choice of design for SPEAK, MEMORY that I flatter myself with a similar vision of ADA in the Penguin edition.

  I am returning the two designs and plate.

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR

  TLS, 1 p. Lilly Library.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  December 9, 1969

  Dear Frank,

  I am airmailing separately (to-morrow) the complete typescript of POEMS AND PROBLEMS. It consists of: 1) a Dedication to my wife; 2) a Preface; 3) 36 poems in my English translation; 4) the 36 Russian originals; 5) notes to some of them; 6) 14 English poems of my New Yorker period; 7) a Bibliography; 8) 18 Chess problems with notes and 9) their Solutions. Weariness and various professional worries (the Penguin misprints in ADA, my ADA, are exasperating) prevent me from appending an Index. Has Velie returned to the fold?

  It is for you to decide, but I am quite sure (and I implore, entreat, and impetrate you to consider my point) that the Cyrillic weirdies ought not to be tucked away, in diamond print, but should be boldly displayed en regard.1 This is both more scholarly and compendious, since they will take less place in a verso position while satisfying the poignant demands of pedantic purity. Surely, their presence in that position would attract at least as many Russian readers (in New York and in Moscow) as they might repulse monolingual flippers. Give this a friendly thought. I note that I follow elderly predecessors in underlining words.

  I have been generally against capitalizing lines; but the New Yorker did not always respect my habit or I forgot to enforce it; anyway I notice that some of the English poems, copied from capitalized texts, should be checked and cured in that respect. And please, tell me when you expect to bring out the thing because if there is time, I would like to prepublish a couple of my translations.

  Very cordially,

  Vladimir Nabokov2

  TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR

  TLS, 2 pp. Lilly Library.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  December 13, 1969

  Dear Frank,

  Now that Poems & Problems is out of the way, let us discuss the next projects and arrangements.

  If you are publishing the abridged Eugene Onegin (I am still in the dusk regarding your plans), I would like that work to be part of my obligations and would wish to devote the next month or so (while waiting for Mary) to completing the revisions and to writing the notes (of these, I believe there will not be more than around a hundred, with none exceeding three or four lines, but they are not easy to select and rework, and I would like to know the maximum of space you allow me for them). The actual text (the eight chapters plus Pushkin's own notes, including fragments of an additional chapter) will occupy about 200 pages, with a three or four-page long preface.

  I have seen the first pages (one chapter and a half) of the English MARY, have corrected a number of things, including a few howlers, and have written to the translator, telling him that you expect to get the book by March and that it will take me about a month to revise it properly before that deadline. (It was March, wasn't it?).

  I must be given at least three weeks to check the Fawcett edition of ADA. I must also see the jacket design. Véra and I have had an awful time proofreading the Penguin edition which we have now finished checking. It contained a crop of misleading misprints—the worst kind, things that make sense to a demented printer, perhaps, but not to the author.

  What is exactly the De Liso situation?

  I need a year to finish Transparent Things.

  Please, Frank, all this is important and worrisome, so do answer these queries by letter as soon as possible. I love talking to you over the ocean, but I forget half of what you tell me, and seven-eighths of what I tell you.

  Thanks for the clipping. You probably know that ADA has made an additional penny on the "Playboy" sidewalk like a good girl. P. & P.'s should reach you on Monday. Dmitri is back at Monza, and we expect him to visit us soon.

  Yours ever,

  V

  Vladimir Nabokov

  P.S. In case you prefer not to make the paperback Eugene Onegin part of our general contract, I would not mind your publishing it under a separate agreement. The paperback rights belong to me (without any participation by Bollingen).

  P.p.s. We have just heard from Godwin: Glenny promises to finish the translation of Mary by mid-February

  Véra1

  TO: FRANK E. TAYLOR

  TLS, 1 p. Lilly Library.

  Montreux, Palace Hotel

  Switzerland

  December 20th, 1969

  Dear Frank,

  I am absolutely delighted with the beautifully appetizing bound copies of ADA and KING, QUEEN, KNAVE. Chesterton says somewhere that there are colored minerals one would like to eat, and Russian generals have been eaten in Africa with all their decorations.

  I saw with great satisfaction that, in a blue passage, Stanley has been replaced by Speke.

  A few days ago I sent you a letter and the typescript of POEMS AND PROBLEMS, and less than a few days ago, both were acknowledged in your absence. I am looking forward to a letter from you upon your return answering my questions, in particular with regard to our further schedule.

  Thank you for your warm greeting of December 4.

  Véra and I wish you a merry Christmas and a glorious New Year.

  I do not know if I told you that the English Problemist has printed some of my problems, and that the New Statesman has just published one too.

  As ever,

  Vladimir Nabokov1

  FORM LETTER

  C. 1969

  PRINTED

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Vladimir Nabokov finds it impossible to answer all the kind letters he receives from his readers. He extends his warmest thanks to the many friends and strangers who send him their good wishes, gifts and comments.

  TO: PROF. ALFRED APPEL, JR.

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  February 20, 1970

  Dear Alfred,

  I deeply appreciate the enormous and tender trouble you took over the splendid Festschrift,1 both as ceremony-master and convive. I must also extend my heartfelt thanks to Charles Newman. Most of the contributions, yours most especially, have a warmth that dissolved the crusty old cockles. The tail of my telegram which read

  great feast grateful greetings small growls

  was prompted by errors of fact, that occur in three pieces, all three by ladies (Berberov, Léon, and Steiner).

  The tributors are dears, and Timofey Pavlovich's letter is a masterpiece.2

  Acting upon a casual suggestion of yours, Alfred, I intend to write a little essay on Tri Quarterly, number seventeen, winter 1970, $1–95.3 Would that journal publish it? Or the NYRB? Or NYTBR?

  Véra joins me in sending Nina and you our very best regards.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: DMITRI NABOKOV

  HOLOGRAPH PS TO VÉRA NABOKOV LETTER

  Palace Hotel

  1820 Montreux

  30 May 1970

  I am keeping the Esquire for you. Here is a Russian saying:

  gore vidal i bit bïval1

  If you fly high over the tropical forest, you may notice what looks like shimmering little light-blue mirrors —Morpho butterflies flying above the trees.

  I love you, no down!2

  P.3

  TO: PROF. ALFRED APPEL, JR.

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

/>   Montreux, Palace Hotel, Switzerland

  June 9, 1970

  Dear Alfred,

  The Annotated Lolita arrived only yesterday. Your comments form a superb additional book full of your own artistic vigor, gems and stratagems. I think it will fascinate the good reader as surely as it will distress flippant fools. How delighted I am that you undertook this task!

  There are only two misprints to correct in later printings (apart from your own Errata which I have pasted in).

  P. 369: acrosonic, not "acronsonic"

  P. 375: verbal body to thoughts, not "verbal body to words"

  (my slip in the interview)

  I have tried hard to discover mistakes in your notes and have come up with three little ones:

  P. 336: family Nymphalidae, not "genus"

  P. 380: bits of nudity, rather than "the nude"

  P. 426: it is Dr. Larivière who sheds that tear and who is supposed to represent the author's father, Dr. Flaubert

  We both send you our warmest greetings and look forward to seeing you and Nina in the early fall.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: PROF. GLEB STRUVE

  TLS, 1 p. Hoover Institution

  Montreux Switzerland

  June 14, 1970

  Dear Gleb Petrovich,

  I have no Russian reference books at hand but, in so far as I remember and know, the word podachka—even though vulgarized by popular usage—is the only correct translation of the basic sense of curée1 Alas, it does not extend to the metaphoric "quarry." Incidentally, I would be curious to know how, in his vulgar and illiterate Hamlet, Pasternak translates the phrase "this quarry cries on havoc." I like very much the Polish otprava!2 Is there any linguistic connection between curée and shkura?3

  Cordially yours,

  V. Nabokov

  PS: Your piece on Berberova is quite fair. By the way, in my article about the Festschrift, I refute the precision of her feminine memory (as, for ex., in the case of the idiotic anecdote about my "Rachmaninov" dinner jacket)4

  VN5

  TO: ANDREW FIELD

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Palace Hotel

  June 18, 1970

  Dear Andrew,

  You may use the following note in any way you wish:

  My father felt so infinitely superior to any accusation of antisemitism (its official brand, or the even more disgusting household variety) that out of a kind of self-confidence and contempt for showcase philosemitism he used to make it a point—and go out of his way to make it—of being as plainspoken about Jew and Gentile as were his Jewish colleagues (such as Joseph Hessen and Grigory Landau) or the Christian but impeccably unprejudiced Milyukov. In the case of Nakhamkes, a well-known figure of fun and an impudent boor, the stress of the passage is obviously not on his race but on his portmanteau name so aptly blending kham (blackguard) and nakhal (jackanapes). I wish to point out that my father's publicistic style is marked by a certain bluntness and banality which he deplored himself when marvelling with me at say Aleksandr Hertsen's epithetic felicities; but the rugged phrasing in what you call the "Jewish references" proceeds less from a hasty pen than from that familiarity with which some professional divine might permit himself to speak of a martyr's quirks.

  Answering your biographical queries will take me not quite as long as writing another Speak, Memory but very nearly so.

  I hope you have received by now the photograph together with your Bibliography and some additional material.

  Cordial greetings to you both from both of us.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: BO GUNNARSSON

  TLS (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  August 19, 1970

  Sir,

  Mr. Nabokov asks me to convey to you the following message:

  "I have never read anything by Mr. Gerhardie,1 I never heard of him until Lady Snow once mentioned his name to me at a cocktailparty in the late fifties, and I cannot understand whom it may benefit to spread the utter nonsense of his having had any 'influence' on me."

  Yours truly,

  Jacqueline Callier

  Secretary to Mr. Nabokov

  TO: ROSA MONTAGUE1

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  September 9, 1970

  Dear Miss Montague,

  I do not wish to appear choosy, but the new cover design won't do.2 The banal pop-arty combination of a broken chessboard inserted between Siamese twins (identical except for the forlock on one brow) is meaningless and repulsive. I do not insist on cover designs illustrating a novel realistically, but I do object to a pseudo-realism unconnected with anything in the book. It is a great pity Panther does not wish to use the 1967 cover-design, but if so, let us have some purely ornamental pattern without eyes, noses, or hands.

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  I am returning the jacket design.

  TO: ELENA SIKORSKI

  ALS.1 Elena Sikorski.

  To My Sister Elena,

  We are distinguished by wings of black hue,

  wine-iridescence, and granules of blue

  following yellowish, crenulate borders.

  Copses of birch are our favorite quarters.

  V. Nabokov

  September, 1970

  Montreux2

  TO: MICHAEL WALTER1

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  November 23, 1970

  Dear Mr. Walter,

  Many thanks for your kind letter with Dr. Higgins's2 remarks.

  No, I was not alluding to the Balkans in connection with the Twinspot Fritillary's map, but to peninsular Italy (where I have found it common in oak scrub country on the border of Tuscany and Umbria).

  I still think that in his drawings of Ringlets Mr. Hardgreaves' faithfulness is handicapped by his incomplete grasp of the subject. The pointed hindwing may occur in underdeveloped individuals of some Ringlets (e.g. in small specimens of E. pluto) but it is neither a diagnostic nor natural feature of that round-winged genus and looks rather absurd when shown only on one side of the butterfly (P. 37, 7d; pl. 41, 2b and 3a).

  As for the Norfolk Swallowtail what I had in view was precisely its resemblance to the first generation of certain Mediterranean races of the species (as noted long ago by Verity) and its striking difference from the typical single-brooded Swedish race.

  I shall be grateful to you for transmitting these little clarifications to Dr. Higgins. I also wish to thank you for promising to send me a copy of the revised edition, though let me repeat that even without any revisions, it remains a marvellous and delightful book.

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  P.S. On p. 84 'Le Grand' should be 'La Grande', and on p. 85 the date after 'Esper' is misprinted.

  TO: JOHN C. BRODERICK1

  TL (XEROX), 1 p.

  Montreux-Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  December 14, 1970

  Dear Mr. Broderick,

  I am most grateful to you for sending the material which arrived safely, and for your good letter of November 25.

  I appreciate your kind offer not to charge to me the xeroxing and mailing expenses. However, I would prefer you to bill me, and this for the following reason:

  Much of the material you have does not exist in any other copy, some of it has never been in print, and parts of that I now plan to publish gradually. At the present time, for instance, I am thinking of assembling a collection of articles. I also need some letters and notes for the writing of my second volume of memoirs (SPEAK ON, MEMORY). Therefore I would like to beg you to send me at my expense, little by little, and in such installments as suits you best, xerox copies of my non-fiction material, namely everything except the manuscripts, notes and typescripts of all my published novels (Russian and English) and published
translations (EUGENE ONEGIN, A HERO OF OUR TIME and THE SONG OF PRINCE IGOR'S CAMPAIGN). Also I do not need any of the following: short stories; transcripts of verse in my mother's hand (in thick batches of long sheets); my own mss (and typescripts) of my poems; material related to my screenplay LOLITA and to SPEAK, MEMORY ("Conclusive Evidence"); unpublished or published translations of my novels or stories.

  I would, however, want the dramatic works including the tragedy in verse The Tragedy of Mr. Morn, all my correspondence, all articles (published or unpublished) and other non-fiction material.

  I have been giving quite a bit of thought to the disposal of my remaining papers. Friends have pointed out to me that I might be disinheriting my son by not leaving to him such papers as the complete ms of my huge ADA which, I am told, may be worth a fortune some day. I shall probably put aside a few items that I shall bequeath to him, but I must wait for a convenient pause in my literary labors to sort things out. In the meantime please tell me more about the new law you mention and what and how exactly would it benefit my estate if I "deposited at" rather than "gave to" the Library more of my papers.

  Best wishes.