Vladimir Nabokov: Difference between revisions
JeanPaulNiko (talk | contribs) m →Russia: Some details regarding Nabokov as a childhood polyglot. Tags: Reverted 2017 wikitext editor |
Undo Reverted |
||
Line 46: | Line 46: | ||
Vladimir was the family's eldest and favorite child, with four younger siblings: [[Sergey Nabokov|Sergey]] (1900–45), Olga (1903–78), Elena (1906–2000), and Kirill (1912–64). Sergey was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 after publicly denouncing Hitler's regime. Writer [[Ayn Rand]] recalled Olga (her close friend at Stoiunina Gymnasium) as a supporter of constitutional monarchy who first awakened Rand's interest in politics.<ref>{{Citation | last = Sciabarra | first = Chris Matthew | title = Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical | publisher = Penn State Press | year = 2013 | pages = 66, 367–68}}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Gladstein | first = Mimi Reisel | year = 2009 | title = Ayn Rand | series = Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers | place = New York | publisher = Continuum | isbn = 978-0-8264-4513-1 | page = 2}}.</ref> Elena, who in later years became Vladimir's favorite sibling, published her correspondence with him in 1985. She was an important source for later biographers of Nabokov. |
Vladimir was the family's eldest and favorite child, with four younger siblings: [[Sergey Nabokov|Sergey]] (1900–45), Olga (1903–78), Elena (1906–2000), and Kirill (1912–64). Sergey was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 after publicly denouncing Hitler's regime. Writer [[Ayn Rand]] recalled Olga (her close friend at Stoiunina Gymnasium) as a supporter of constitutional monarchy who first awakened Rand's interest in politics.<ref>{{Citation | last = Sciabarra | first = Chris Matthew | title = Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical | publisher = Penn State Press | year = 2013 | pages = 66, 367–68}}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Gladstein | first = Mimi Reisel | year = 2009 | title = Ayn Rand | series = Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers | place = New York | publisher = Continuum | isbn = 978-0-8264-4513-1 | page = 2}}.</ref> Elena, who in later years became Vladimir's favorite sibling, published her correspondence with him in 1985. She was an important source for later biographers of Nabokov. |
||
Nabokov spent his childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg and at the country estate Vyra near [[Siverskaya]], south of the city. His childhood, which he called "perfect" and "cosmopolitan", was remarkable in several ways. The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and Nabokov was |
Nabokov spent his childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg and at the country estate Vyra near [[Siverskaya]], south of the city. His childhood, which he called "perfect" and "cosmopolitan", was remarkable in several ways. The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first English book his mother read to him was ''Misunderstood'' (1869) by [[Florence Montgomery]]. Much to his patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in Russian. In his memoir ''[[Speak, Memory]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last1=Beam |first1=Alex |title=Confessions of a word snob |work=International Herald Tribune |date=29 April 2013 | via=Cengage | id={{Gale|A327843688}}}}</ref> Nabokov recalls numerous details of his privileged childhood. His ability to recall in vivid detail memories of his past was a boon to him during his permanent exile, providing a theme that runs from his first book ''[[Mary (novel)|Mary]]'' to later works such as ''[[Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle]]''. While the family was nominally [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]], it had little religious fervor. Vladimir was not forced to attend church after he lost interest. |
||
In 1916, Nabokov inherited the estate [[Rozhdestveno Memorial Estate|Rozhdestveno]], next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in ''[[Speak, Memory]]''). He lost it in the [[October Revolution]] one year later; this was the only house he ever owned.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} |
In 1916, Nabokov inherited the estate [[Rozhdestveno Memorial Estate|Rozhdestveno]], next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in ''[[Speak, Memory]]''). He lost it in the [[October Revolution]] one year later; this was the only house he ever owned.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} |
Revision as of 02:16, 11 May 2024
Vladimir Nabokov | |
---|---|
Modernism | |
Years active | from 1916 |
Employers | |
Notable works |
|
Spouse | Véra Nabokov |
Children | Dmitri Nabokov |
Signature | |
Website | |
vladimir-nabokov | |
Literature portal |
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at
Early life and education
Russia
Nabokov was born on 22 April 1899 (10 April 1899
Vladimir was the family's eldest and favorite child, with four younger siblings: Sergey (1900–45), Olga (1903–78), Elena (1906–2000), and Kirill (1912–64). Sergey was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 after publicly denouncing Hitler's regime. Writer Ayn Rand recalled Olga (her close friend at Stoiunina Gymnasium) as a supporter of constitutional monarchy who first awakened Rand's interest in politics.[14][15] Elena, who in later years became Vladimir's favorite sibling, published her correspondence with him in 1985. She was an important source for later biographers of Nabokov.
Nabokov spent his childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg and at the country estate Vyra near
In 1916, Nabokov inherited the estate Rozhdestveno, next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in Speak, Memory). He lost it in the October Revolution one year later; this was the only house he ever owned.[citation needed]
Nabokov's adolescence was the period in which he made his first serious literary endeavors. In 1916, he published his first book, Stikhi ("Poems"), a collection of 68 Russian poems. At the time he was attending Tenishev school in Saint Petersburg, where his literature teacher Vladimir Vasilievich Gippius had criticized his literary accomplishments. Some time after the publication of Stikhi, Zinaida Gippius, renowned poet and first cousin of his teacher, told Nabokov's father at a social event, "Please tell your son that he will never be a writer."[17]
After the 1917 February Revolution, Nabokov's father became a secretary of the Russian Provisional Government in Saint Petersburg.
October Revolution
After the October Revolution, the family was forced to flee the city for Crimea, at first not expecting to be away for very long. They lived at a friend's estate and in September 1918 moved to Livadiya, at the time under the separatist Crimean Regional Government, in which Nabokov's father became a minister of justice.
University of Cambridge
After the withdrawal of the
At Cambridge, one journalist wrote in 2014, "the coats-of-arms on the windows of his room protected him from the cold and from the melancholy over the recent loss of his country. It was in this city, in his moments of solitude, accompanied by King Lear, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Ulysses, that Nabokov made the firm decision to become a Russian writer."[18]
Career
Berlin (1922–1937)
In 1920, Nabokov's family moved to Berlin, where his father set up the émigré newspaper Rul' ("Rudder"). Nabokov followed them to Berlin two years later, after completing his studies at Cambridge.
In March 1922, Russian monarchists Pyotr Shabelsky-Bork and Sergey Taboritsky shot and killed Nabokov's father in Berlin as he was shielding their target, Pavel Milyukov, a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party-in-exile. Shortly after his father's death, Nabokov's mother and sister moved to Prague. Nabokov drew upon his father's death repeatedly in his fiction. On one interpretation of his novel Pale Fire, an assassin kills the poet John Shade when his target is a fugitive European monarch.
Nabokov stayed in Berlin, where he had become a recognised poet and writer in Russian within the émigré community; he published under the nom de plume V. Sirin (a reference to the fabulous bird of Russian folklore). To supplement his scant writing income, he taught languages and gave tennis and boxing lessons.[19] Dieter E. Zimmer has written of Nabokov's 15 Berlin years, "he never became fond of Berlin, and at the end intensely disliked it. He lived within the lively Russian community of Berlin that was more or less self-sufficient, staying on after it had disintegrated because he had nowhere else to go to. He knew little German. He knew few Germans except for landladies, shopkeepers, and immigration officials at the police headquarters."[20]
Marriage
In 1922, Nabokov became engaged to Svetlana Siewert, but she broke the engagement off early in 1923 when her parents worried whether he could provide for her., was born in 1934.
In the course of 1936, Véra lost her job because of the increasingly antisemitic environment; Sergey Taboritsky was appointed deputy head of Germany's Russian-émigré bureau; and Nabokov began seeking a job in the English-speaking world.
France (1937–1940)
In 1937, Nabokov left Germany for France, where he had a short affair with Irina Guadanini, also a Russian émigrée. His family followed him to France, making en route their last visit to
In 1939, in Paris, Nabokov wrote the 55-page novella The Enchanter, his final work of Russian fiction.[22] He later called it "the first little throb of Lolita."[23]
In May 1940, the Nabokovs fled the advancing German troops, reaching the United States via the SS Champlain. Nabokov's brother Sergei did not leave France, and he died at the Neuengamme concentration camp on 9 January 1945.[24]
United States
New York City (1940–1941)
The Nabokovs settled in
Wellesley College (1941–1948)
Nabokov joined the staff of
Cornell University (1948–1959)
After being encouraged by
Nabokov wrote Lolita while traveling on the butterfly-collection trips in the western U.S. that he undertook every summer. Véra acted as "secretary, typist, editor, proofreader, translator and bibliographer; his agent, business manager, legal counsel and chauffeur; his research assistant, teaching assistant and professorial understudy"; when Nabokov attempted to burn unfinished drafts of Lolita, Véra stopped him. He called her the best-humored woman he had ever known.[19][28][29]
In June 1953, Nabokov and his family went to Ashland, Oregon. There he finished Lolita and began writing the novel Pnin. He roamed the nearby mountains looking for butterflies, and wrote a poem called Lines Written in Oregon. On 1 October 1953, he and his family returned to Ithaca, where he later taught the young writer Thomas Pynchon.[30]
Montreux (1961–1977)
After the great financial success of Lolita, Nabokov returned to Europe and devoted himself to writing. In 1961, he and Véra moved to the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, where he remained until the end of his life.[31] From his sixth-floor quarters, he conducted his business and took tours to the Alps, Corsica, and Sicily to hunt butterflies.
Death
Nabokov died on 2 July 1977 in Montreux.[32] His remains were cremated and buried at Clarens cemetery in Montreux.[33]: xxix–l
At the time of his death, he was working on a novel titled
Works
Critical reception and writing style
Nabokov is known as one of the leading prose stylists of the 20th century; his first writings were in Russian, but he achieved his greatest fame with the novels he wrote in English. As a trilingual (also writing in French, see
Nabokov himself translated into Russian two books he originally wrote in English, Conclusive Evidence and Lolita. The "translation" of Conclusive Evidence was made because Nabokov felt that the English version was imperfect. Writing the book, he noted that he needed to translate his own memories into English and to spend time explaining things that are well known in Russia; he decided to rewrite the book in his native language before making the final version, Speak, Memory (Nabokov first wanted to name it "Speak, Mnemosyne"). Of translating Lolita, Nabokov writes, "I imagined that in some distant future somebody might produce a Russian version of Lolita. I trained my inner telescope upon that particular point in the distant future and I saw that every paragraph, pock-marked as it is with pitfalls, could lend itself to hideous mistranslation. In the hands of a harmful drudge, the Russian version of Lolita would be entirely degraded and botched by vulgar paraphrases or blunders. So I decided to translate it myself."[39]
Nabokov was a proponent of individualism, and rejected concepts and ideologies that curtailed individual freedom and expression, such as totalitarianism in its various forms, as well as Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.[33]: 412ff Poshlost, or as he transcribed it, poshlust, is disdained and frequently mocked in his works.[33]: 628ff
Nabokov's creative processes involved writing sections of text on hundreds of index cards, which he expanded into paragraphs and chapters and rearranged to form the structure of his novels, a process that many screenwriters later adopted.[31]
Nabokov published under the pseudonym Vladimir Sirin in the 1920s to 1940s, occasionally to mask his identity from critics.[40] He also makes cameo appearances in some of his novels, such as the character Vivian Darkbloom (an anagram of "Vladimir Nabokov"), who appears in both Lolita and Ada, or Ardor, and the character Blavdak Vinomori (another anagram of Nabokov's name) in King, Queen, Knave. Sirin is referenced as a different émigré author in his memoir and is also referenced in Pnin.
Nabokov is noted for his complex plots, clever word play, daring metaphors, and prose style capable of both parody and intense lyricism.[citation needed] He gained both fame and notoriety with Lolita (1955), which recounts a grown man's consuming passion for a 12-year-old girl. This and his other novels, particularly Pale Fire (1962), won him a place among the greatest novelists of the 20th century. [citation needed] His longest novel, which met with a mixed response, is Ada (1969). He devoted more time to the composition of it than to any other. Nabokov's fiction is characterized by linguistic playfulness. For example, his short story "The Vane Sisters" is famous in part for its acrostic final paragraph, in which the first letters of each word spell out a message from beyond the grave. Another of his short stories, "Signs and Symbols", features a character suffering from an imaginary illness called "Referential Mania", in which the affected perceives a world of environmental objects exchanging coded messages.[41]
Nabokov's stature as a literary critic is founded largely on his four-volume translation of and commentary on Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin published in 1964. The commentary ends with an appendix titled Notes on Prosody, which has developed a reputation of its own. It stemmed from his observation that while Pushkin's iambic tetrameters had been a part of Russian literature for a fairly short two centuries, they were clearly understood by the Russian prosodists. On the other hand, he viewed the much older English iambic tetrameters as muddled and poorly documented. In his own words:
I have been forced to invent a simple little terminology of my own, explain its application to English verse forms, and indulge in certain rather copious details of classification before even tackling the limited object of these notes to my translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, an object that boils down to very little—in comparison to the forced preliminaries—namely, to a few things that the non-Russian student of Russian literature must know in regard to Russian prosody in general and to Eugene Onegin in particular.
Cornell University lectures
Nabokov's lectures at Cornell University, as collected in Lectures on Literature, reveal his controversial ideas concerning art.[42] He firmly believed that novels should not aim to teach and that readers should not merely empathize with characters but that a 'higher' aesthetic enjoyment should be attained, partly by paying great attention to details of style and structure. He detested what he saw as 'general ideas' in novels, and so when teaching Ulysses, for example, he would insist students keep an eye on where the characters were in Dublin (with the aid of a map) rather than teaching the complex Irish history that many critics see as being essential to an understanding of the novel.[43] In 2010, Kitsch magazine, a student publication at Cornell, published a piece that focused on student reflections on his lectures and also explored Nabokov's long relationship with Playboy.[44] Nabokov also wanted his students to describe the details of the novels rather than a narrative of the story and was very strict when it came to grading. As Edward Jay Epstein described his experience in Nabokov's classes, Nabokov made it clear from the very first lectures that he had little interest in fraternizing with students, who would be known not by their name but by their seat number.[45]
Influence
External videos | |
---|---|
Nabokov Centenary Celebration hosted by New Yorker magazine, April 15, 1999, C-SPAN |
The Russian literary critic Yuly Aykhenvald was an early admirer of Nabokov, citing in particular his ability to imbue objects with life: "he saturates trivial things with life, sense and psychology and gives a mind to objects; his refined senses notice colorations and nuances, smells and sounds, and everything acquires an unexpected meaning and truth under his gaze and through his words."[46] The critic James Wood argues that Nabokov's use of descriptive detail proved an "overpowering, and not always very fruitful, influence on two or three generations after him", including authors such as Martin Amis and John Updike.[47] While a student at Cornell in the 1950s, Thomas Pynchon attended several of Nabokov's lectures[48] and alluded to Lolita in chapter six of his novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), in which Serge, countertenor in the band the Paranoids, sings:
- What chance has a lonely surfer boy
- For the love of a surfer chick,
- With all these Humbert Humbert cats
- Coming on so big and sick?
- For me, my baby was a woman,
- For him she's just another nymphet.
Pynchon's prose style was influenced by Nabokov's preference for actualism over realism.[49] Of the authors who came to prominence during Nabokov's life, John Banville,[50] Don DeLillo,[51] Salman Rushdie,[52] and Edmund White[53] were all influenced by him. The novelist John Hawkes took inspiration from Nabokov and considered himself his follower. Nabokov's story "Signs and Symbols" was on the reading list for Hawkes's writing students at Brown University. "A writer who truly and greatly sustains us is Vladimir Nabokov," Hawkes said in a 1964 interview.[54]
Several authors who came to prominence in the 1990s and 2000s have also cited Nabokov's work as a literary influence.
Nabokov appears in W. G. Sebald's 1993 novel The Emigrants.[62]
A crater on the planet Mercury was named after Nabokov in 2012.[63]
Adaptations
The song cycle "Sing, Poetry" on the 2011 contemporary classical album Troika comprises settings of Russian and English versions of three of Nabokov's poems by such composers as Jay Greenberg, Michael Schelle and Lev Zhurbin.
Entomology
Nabokov's interest in entomology was inspired by books by Maria Sibylla Merian he found in the attic of his family's country home in Vyra.[64] Throughout an extensive career of collecting, he never learned to drive a car, and depended on his wife to take him to collecting sites. During the 1940s, as a research fellow in zoology, he was responsible for organizing the butterfly collection of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His writings in this area were highly technical. This, combined with his specialty in the relatively unspectacular tribe Polyommatini of the family Lycaenidae, has left this facet of his life little explored by most admirers of his literary works. He described the Karner blue. The genus Nabokovia was named after him in honor of this work, as were a number of butterfly and moth species (e.g., many species in the genera Madeleinea and Pseudolucia bear epithets alluding to Nabokov or names from his novels).[65] In 1967, Nabokov commented: "The pleasures and rewards of literary inspiration are nothing beside the rapture of discovering a new organ under the microscope or an undescribed species on a mountainside in Iran or Peru. It is not improbable that had there been no revolution in Russia, I would have devoted myself entirely to lepidopterology and never written any novels at all."[31]
The paleontologist and essayist
The
Though professional lepidopterists did not take Nabokov's work seriously during his life, new genetic research supports Nabokov's hypothesis that a group of butterfly species, called the Polyommatus blues, came to the New World over the Bering Strait in five waves, eventually reaching Chile.[68]
Many of Nabokov's fans have tried to ascribe literary value to his scientific papers, Gould notes. Conversely, others have claimed that his scientific work enriched his literary output. Gould advocates a third view, holding that the other two positions are examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Rather than assuming that either side of Nabokov's work caused or stimulated the other, Gould proposes that both stemmed from Nabokov's love of detail, contemplation, and symmetry.
Politics and views
Russian politics
Russia has always been a curiously unpleasant country despite her great literature. Unfortunately, Russians today have completely lost their ability to kill tyrants.
— Vladimir Nabokov[10]: 21
Nabokov was a
Throughout his life, Nabokov would remain committed to the classical liberal political philosophy of his father, and equally opposed Tsarist autocracy, communism, and fascism.[10]: 24–36
Nabokov's father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, was the most outspoken defender of Jewish rights in the
When asked in 1969 whether he would like to revisit the land he fled in 1918, now the Soviet Union, he replied: "There's nothing to look at. New tenement houses and old churches do not interest me. The hotels there are terrible. I detest the Soviet theater. Any palace in Italy is superior to the repainted abodes of the Tsars. The village huts in the forbidden hinterland are as dismally poor as ever, and the wretched peasant flogs his wretched cart horse with the same wretched zest. As to my special northern landscape and the haunts of my childhood—well, I would not wish to contaminate their images preserved in my mind."[70]: 148
American politics
In the 1940s, as an émigré in America, Nabokov stressed the connection between American and English liberal democracy and the aspirations of the short-lived Russian provisional government. In 1942, he declared: "Democracy is humanity at its best ... it is the natural condition of every man ever since the human mind became conscious not only of the world but of itself."[73] During the 1960s, in both letters and interviews, he reveals a profound contempt for the New Left movements, calling the protesters "conformists" and "goofy hoodlums."[70]: 139 [74] In a 1967 interview, Nabokov said that he refused to associate with supporters of Bolshevism or Tsarist autocracy but that he had "friends among intellectual constitutional monarchists as well as among intellectual social revolutionaries."[75] Nabokov supported the Vietnam War effort and voiced admiration for both Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.[74][76][77][78] Racism against African-Americans appalled Nabokov, who touted Alexander Pushkin's multiracial background as an argument against segregation.[76]
Views on women writers
Nabokov's wife
Personal life
Synesthesia
Nabokov was a self-described
For some synesthetes, letters are not simply associated with certain colors, they are themselves colored. Nabokov frequently endowed his protagonists with a similar gift. In Bend Sinister, Krug comments on his perception of the word "loyalty" as like a golden fork lying out in the sun. In The Defense, Nabokov briefly mentions that the main character's father, a writer, found he was unable to complete a novel that he planned to write, becoming lost in the fabricated storyline by "starting with colors". Many other subtle references are made in Nabokov's writing that can be traced back to his synesthesia. Many of his characters have a distinct "sensory appetite" reminiscent of synesthesia.[86]
Nabokov described his synesthesia at length in his autobiography Speak, Memory:[87]
I present a fine case of colored hearing. Perhaps "hearing" is not quite accurate, since the color sensations seem to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet (and it is this alphabet I have in mind farther on unless otherwise stated) has for me the tint of weathered wood, but the French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of the whites. I am puzzled by my French on which I see as the brimming tension-surface of alcohol in a small glass. Passing on to the blue group, there is steely x, thundercloud z, and huckleberry k. Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of
mother-of-pearl.
Religion
Nabokov was a religious agnostic.[88] He was very open about, and received criticism for, his indifference to organized mysticism, to religion, and to any church.[89]
Sleep
Nabokov was a notorious, lifelong insomniac who admitted unease at the prospect of sleep, once saying, "the night is always a giant".[90] Later in life his insomnia was exacerbated by an enlarged prostate.[91] Nabokov called sleep a "moronic fraternity", "mental torture", and a "nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius".[92] Insomnia's impact on his work has been widely explored, and in 2017 Princeton University Press published a compilation of his dream diary entries, Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov.[93]
Chess problems
Nabokov spent considerable time during his exile composing chess problems, which he published in Germany's Russian émigré press, Poems and Problems (18 problems) and Speak, Memory (one). He describes the process of composing and constructing in his memoir: "The strain on the mind is formidable; the element of time drops out of one's consciousness". To him, the "originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity" of creating a chess problem was similar to that in any other art.
List of works
- Main works written in Russian
- (1926) Mary
- (1928) King, Queen, Knave
- (1930) The Luzhin Defense or The Defense
- (1930) The Eye
- (1932) Glory
- (1933) Laughter in the Dark
- (1934) Despair
- (1936) Invitation to a Beheading
- (1938) The Gift
- (1939) The Enchanter
- Main works written in English
- (1941) The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
- (1947) Bend Sinister
- (1955) Lolita, self-translated into Russian (1965)
- (1957) Pnin
- (1962) Pale Fire
- (1967) Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited
- (1969) Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
- (1972) Transparent Things
- (1974) Look at the Harlequins!
- (2009) The Original of Laura (fragmentary; written during the mid-1970s and published posthumously)
Notes
- ^ a b c Confusion over his birth date was generated by some people misunderstanding the relationship between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. At the time of Nabokov's birth, the offset between the calendars was 12 days. His date of birth in the Julian calendar was 10 April 1899; in the Gregorian, 22 April 1899.[94] The fact that the offset increased from 12 to 13 days for dates occurring after February 1900 was always irrelevant to earlier dates, and hence a 13-day offset should never have been applied to Nabokov's date of birth. Nevertheless, it was so misapplied by some writers, and 23 April came to be erroneously shown in many places as his birthday. In his memoirs Speak, Memory Nabokov indicates that 22 April was the correct date but that he nevertheless preferred to celebrate his birthday "with diminishing pomp" on 23 April (p. 6).[vague] As he happily pointed out on several occasions during interviews, this meant he also shared a birthday with William Shakespeare and Shirley Temple.[10][95]
- ^ British English: /ˈnæbəkɒf, nəˈboʊkɒf, -ˈbɒk-/ NAB-ə-kof, nə-BO(H)K-of, American English: /ˈnɑːbəkɔːf, ˈnæb-, nəˈbɔːkəf/ NA(H)B-ə-KAWF, nə-BAW-kəf.[1][2][3][4][5]
References
- ^ "Nabokov". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
- ^ "Nabokov". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
- ^ "Nabokov, Vladimir". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022.
- ^ "Nabokov". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
- ^ "Nabokov, Vladimir". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
- ^ "The 50th Anniversary of Nabokov's Lolita". rmc.library.cornell.edu. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ^ "100 Best Novels". randomhouse.com. Modern Library. 2007. Archived from the original on 18 March 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ^ "100 Best Nonfiction". randomhouse.com. Modern Library. 2007. Archived from the original on 19 March 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ^ Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich (1951). Speak, Memory: A Memoir. Gollancz. p. 37.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7011-3700-7.
- ISBN 9781861896605.
- ^ "Vladimir Nabokov | American author". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
- ^ Giroud, Vincent (2015). Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music. Oxford University Press. p. 2.
- ^ Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (2013), Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Penn State Press, pp. 66, 367–68.
- ISBN 978-0-8264-4513-1.
- Gale A327843688– via Cengage.
- ^ Karlinsky, Simon (25 June 2008). "Nabokov and Some Poets of Russian Modernism". Cycnos. NABOKOV : At the Crossroads of Modernism and Postmodernism -. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ^ "The secret British life of Vladimir Nabokov", Russia Beyond, 22 April 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-14-023858-7.
- ^ Zimmer, Dieter E (15 July 2002). "Presentation of the book Nabokov's Berlin". The International Vladimir Nabokov Symposium. St. Petersburg..
- ^ Schiff, Stacy. "Vera, chapter 1, para 6". The New York Times.
- ^ Heinegg, Peter (18 September 1986). "The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov; translated by Dmitri Navokov". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Cahill, Sarah (9 July 1987). "Reading: The First Throb of Lolita". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
- ^ Grossman, Lev (18 May 2000), "The gay Nabokov", Salon, retrieved 8 December 2013.
- ^ "Nabokov's Type: Lysandra cormion". Retrieved 18 April 2013.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Nabokov, Scientist". Natural History. July 1999.
- ^ "Supreme Court Interviews". LawProse.org. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ^ "Vera Nabokov, 89, Wife, Muse and Agent". The New York Times. 11 April 1991.
- ^ Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. pp. 170, 601.
- ^ Dodge, Dani (5 November 2006). "Snapshot: Nabokov's Retreat". Mail Tribune (Medford, Oregon). Ashland, Oregon. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2 December 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
- ^ a b c d Nabokov, Vladimir (Summer–Fall 1967). "Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40". The Paris Review (Interview). No. 41. Interviewed by Herbert Gold. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
- ^ McCrum, Robert (25 October 2009). "The Final Twist in Nabokov's Untold Story". The Observer – via theguardian.com.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8153-0354-1.
- ^ Connolly, Kate (22 April 2008). "Nabokov's last work will not be burned". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
- ^ "Interview with Dmitri Nabokov". NPR.org. 30 April 2008.
- ^ Agence Française
- ^ a b c d Nabokov, Vladimir (2001). Karlinsky, Simon (ed.). Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940–1971 (Revised ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.: 268
- ^ Updike, John. Hugging the Shore. p. 221.
- ^ Toffler, Alvin. "Playboy interview: Vladimir Nabokov". Playboy. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
- ^ Whiteman, Alden (5 July 1977). "Vladimir Nabokov, Author of 'Lolita' and 'Ada,' Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
- S2CID 144607114.
- ^ Strehle, Susan (1971). Actualism: Pynchon's Debt to Nabokov. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 37–38.
- ^ Collected by Fredson Bowers in 1980 and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
- ^ "Kitsch Magazine". Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ^ Epstein, Edward Jay (4 April 2013). "An A from Nabokov". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
- ISBN 978-184354-093-9.
- ^ Wood, James. "Discussing Nabokov", Slate. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
- ^ Siegel, Jules. "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?" Playboy, March 1977.
- Contemporary Literature24.1, Spring 1983. pp. 30–50.
- ^ "John Banville", The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
- ^ Gussow, Mel. "Toasting (and Analyzing) Nabokov; Cornell Honors the Renaissance Man Who, oh Yes, Wrote 'Lolita'", The New York Times, 15 September 1998.
- ^ Lowery, George (23 October 2007). "Bombs, bands and birds recalled as novelist Salman Rushdie trips down memory lane". Cornell Chronicle. Cornell University. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ^ "An Interview with Edmund White". Bookslut.com. February 2007. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
- ^ "John Hawkes: An Interview. 20 March 1964. John J. Enck and John Hawkes", Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 6.2 (summer 1965): 144. See also Maxim D. Shrayer, "Writing in Tongues", Brown Alumni Monthly September/October 2017; Bez Nabokova[permanent dead link]", Snob.ru 2 July 2017.
- ^ Chabon, Michael (July 2006). "It Changed My Life". michaelchabon.com. Archived from the original on 20 July 2006. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ^ Stringer-Hye, Suellen. "VN Collation No.26". Zembla. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ^ "Q & A with Jeffrey Eugenides". fifthestate.co.uk. 12 April 2008. Archived from the original on 2 February 2008.
- ^ "A Conversation with T. C. Boyle". penguingroup.com. Penguin Reading Guides. Archived from the original on 11 December 2004.
- ISBN 0815608934.
- ^ Mehegan, David (8 February 2008). "[Review of "Waiting for America" by Maxim D. Shrayer]". The Boston Globe.
- ^ "Immigrant Baggage: Morticians, purloined diaries, and other theatrics of exile". Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
- ^ Cohen, Lisa (February–March 1997). "Review: The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald". Boston Review. Archived from the original on 21 November 2010. Retrieved 8 July 2010.
- USGS. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-15-101108-7.
- ^ "Butterflies and moths bearing Nabokov's name". libraries.psu.edu. Zembla. 1996. Archived from the original on 29 October 2011. Retrieved 12 February 2009.
- ISBN 978-0-06-053718-0. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
- ^ a b Pick, Nancy (Spring 2005). "Blood, Sweat, and Bones" (PDF). Colloquy (Alumni Quarterly): 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl (25 January 2011). "Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution Is Vindicated". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
- ^ Dragunoiu, Dana (2011). Vladimir Nabokov and the Poetics of Liberalism. Northwestern University Press. p. 17.
- ^ a b c Nabokov, Vladimir (1990). Strong opinions. Vintage Books.
- ^ Dragunoiu, Dana (2011). Vladimir Nabokov and the Poetics of Liberalism. Northwestern University Press. p. 29.
- ISBN 9781861896605.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Boyd, Brian (2016). Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Princeton University Press. p. 41.
- ^ ISBN 9780415286589.
- ^ Pifer, Ellen (2003). Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita: A Casebook. Oxford University Press. pp. 195–199.
- ^ a b Pitzer, Andrea (2013). The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov. Open Road Media.[page needed]
- ^ Schiff, Stacy (2000). Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov). Random House Digital.[page needed]
- ISBN 9780393322347.
- ^ Frank, Siggy (2012). Nabokov's Theatrical Imagination. Cambridge University Press. p. 170.
- ISBN 9780521632836.
- ISBN 9780786460762.
- ^ From Chapter 1: "Martin's first books were in English: his mother loathed the Russian magazine for children Zadushevnoe Slovo (The Heartfelt Word), and inspired in him such aversion for Madame Charski's young heroines with dusky complexions and titles that even later Martin was wary of any book written by a woman, sensing even in the best of such books an unconscious urge on the part of a middle-aged and perhaps chubby lady to dress up in a pretty name and curl up on the sofa like a pussy cat."
- ^ Martin, Patrick. "Synaesthesia, metaphor and right-brain functioning" in Egoist.
- ^ "Nabokov's interview". BBC Television. 1962. Retrieved 5 December 2015 – via kulichki.com.
- ISBN 978-3-030-45406-7.
- ISBN 9780691069715.
- ISBN 978-3-030-45406-7.
- ISBN 9780804426381.
Nabokov is a self-affirmed agnostic in matters religious, political, and philosophical.
- ^ "Playboy Interview: Vladimir Nabokov". Atavist. 16 August 2016. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
- ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
- ^ "For three months in 1964, Vladimir Nabokov wrote down his dreams every morning, pursuing a theory that time flows backward". The Vintage News. 19 December 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-691-16794-7.
- ^ Brian Boyd p. 37
- ^ Whitman, Alden (23 April 1969). "Interview with Vladimir Nabokov". The New York Times. p. 20.
Further reading
Biography
- ISBN 0-7011-3700-2(hardback)
- Boyd, Brian (1991). Vladimir Nabokov: the American years. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. OCLC 22906836.
- Chien, Evelyn Nien-Ming (2005). "A Shuttlecock Over the Atlantic". Weird English. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01819-8.
- Field, Andrew. VN The Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov. New York: Crown Publishers. 1986. ISBN 0-517-56113-1
- Golla, Robert. Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2017. ISBN 978-1496810953
- Parker, Stephen Jan. Understanding Vladimir Nabokov. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0872494954
- Proffer, Elendea, ed. Vladimir Nabokov: A Pictorial Biography. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1991. ISBN 0-87501-078-4(a collection of photographs)
- Rivers, J.E., and ISBN 978-0-292-75522-2.
- ISBN 0-679-44790-3.
Criticism
- Alexandrov, Vladimir E. (1991). Nabokov's otherworld. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-06866-4.
- Bader, Julia (1972). Crystal land; artifice in Nabokov's English novels. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02167-9.
- Barabtarlo, Gennady (1989). Phantom of fact: a guide to Nabokov's Pnin. Ann Arbor: Ardis. ISBN 978-0-87501-060-1.
- Blackwell, Stephen H. (2009). The quill and the scalpel: Nabokov's art and the worlds of science. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8142-1099-4.
- Boyd, Brian (1999). Nabokov's Pale fire: the magic of artistic discovery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00959-9.
- Connolly, Julian W. (2009). A reader's guide to Nabokov's "Lolita". Studies in Russian and Slavic literatures, cultures and history. Boston: Academic Studies Press. ISBN 978-1-934843-65-9.
- Foster, John Burt (1993). Nabokov's art of memory and European modernism. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-06971-5.
- Hardy, James D.; Martin, Ann (2011). "Light of my life": love, time and memory in Nabokov's Lolita. Jefferson, N.C.; London: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-6357-2.
- Johnson, Donald B. (1985). Worlds in regression: some novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Ann Arbor: Ardis. ISBN 978-0-88233-908-5.
- Livry, Anatoly. «Nabokov le Nietzschéen» Archived 21 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine, HERMANN, Paris, 2010 (in French)
- Ливри, Анатолий. Физиология Сверхчеловека. Введение в третье тысячелетие СПб.: Алетейя, 2011 312 с. Archived 16 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- Meyer, Priscilla (1988). Find what the sailor has hidden: Vladimir Nabokov's Pale fire (1st ed.). Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 978-0-8195-5206-8.
- Morris, Paul Duncan (2010). Vladimir Nabokov: poetry and the lyric voice. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-4020-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8153-0857-7.
- Page, Norman, ed. (1982). Nabokov: The Critical Heritage. The Critical Heritage series. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 978-0-71009-223-6.
- Pifer, Ellen (1980). Nabokov and the novel. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-59840-9.
- Rutledge, David S. (2011). Nabokov's permanent mystery: the expression of metaphysics in his work. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-6076-2.
- Schuman, Samuel (2014). Nabokov's Shakespeare. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-62892-426-8.
- Shrayer, Maxim D. (1998). The World of Nabokov's Stories. Literary modernism series. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77733-0.
- Julian W. Connolly, ed. (1999). "Jewish Questions in Nabokov's Life and Art". Nabokov and his fiction: new perspectives. Cambridge studies in Russian literature. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 73–91. ISBN 978-0-521-63283-6.
- Toker, Leona (1989). Nabokov: the mystery of literary structures. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-2211-9.
- Trousdale, Rachel (2010). Nabokov, Rushdie, and the transnational imagination: novels of exile and alternate worlds (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-10261-3.
- Vernon, David (2022). Ada to Zembla: The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Edinburgh, Scotland: Endellion Press. ISBN 978-1739136109.
- Wood, Michael (1995). The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00632-1.
- Azam Zanganeh, Lila (2011). The enchanter: Nabokov and happiness (1st ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-07992-0.
Bibliography
- Juliar, Michael. Vladimir Nabokov: A Descriptive Bibliography. New York: ISBN 0-8240-8590-6.
- Montalbán, Manuel Vázquez; Glasauer, Willi. Escenas de la Literatura Universal y Retratos de Grandes Autores. Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores, 1988.
- Alexandrov, Vladimir E., ed. The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. ISBN 0-8153-0354-8.
- Funke, Sarah. Véra's Butterflies: First Editions by Vladimir Nabokov Inscribed to his Wife. New York: Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 1999. ISBN 0-9654020-1-0.
Media adaptations
- Peter Medak's short television film, Nabokov on Kafka, is a dramatisation of Nabokov's lectures on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. The part of Nabokov is played by Christopher Plummer.
- Nabokov makes three cameo appearances, at widely scattered points in his life, in W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants.
- See Lolita.
- In 1972 the novel King, Queen, Knave was released as a movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Gina Lollobrigida, David Niven and John Moulder-Brown.
- In 1978 the novel Despair was adapted by Tom Stoppard for the movie directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
- In 1986 his first novel Mary (in Russian Maschenka) was loosely adapted for the movie Maschenka, starring Cary Elwes.
- The novel The Defense was adapted as a feature film, The Luzhin Defence, in 2000 by director Marleen Gorris. The film starred John Turturro and Emily Watson.
Entomology
- Johnson, Kurt, and Steve Coates. Nabokov's blues: The scientific odyssey of a literary genius. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-137330-6(very accessibly written)
- Sartori, Michel, ed. Les Papillons de Nabokov [The butterflies of Nabokov]. Lausanne: Musée cantonal de Zoologie, 1993. ISBN 2-9700051-0-7(exhibition catalogue, primarily in English)
- Zimmer, Dieter E. A Guide to Nabokov's Butterflies and Moths. Privately published, 2001. ISBN 3-00-007609-3(web page)
Other
- Deroy, Chloé, Vladimir Nabokov, Icare russe et Phénix américain (2010). Dijon: EUD
- Gezari, Janet K.; Wimsatt, W. K., "Vladimir Nabokov: More Chess Problems and the Novel", Yale French Studies, No. 58, In Memory of Jacques Ehrmann: Inside Play Outside Game (1979), pp. 102–115, Yale University Press.
External links
- Vladimir-Nabokov.org – Site of the Vladimir Nabokov French Society, Enchanted Researchers (Société française Vladimir Nabokov : Les Chercheurs Enchantés).
- "Nabokov under Glass" – New York Public Library exhibit.
- Herbert Gold (Summer–Fall 1967). "Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40". The Paris Review. Summer-Fall 1967 (41).
- The Atlantic Monthly – Review of Nabokov's Butterflies
- "The Life and Works of Vladimir Nabokov". The New York Public Library, profile and lectures. 2002
- Vladimir Nabokov at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Vladimir Nabokov poetry (in Russian)
- Don Reynolds. "Vladimir Nabokov". The Oregon Encyclopedia.
- Nabokov Online Journal Archived 25 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- "The problem with Nabokov". By Martin Amis 14 November 2009
- "Talking about Nabokov" Archived 25 August 2013 at the Russia Beyond the Headlines, 24 February 2010
- "The Gay Nabokov". Salon Magazine 17 May 2000
- BBC interviews 4 October 1969
- Nabokov Bibliography: All About Vladimir Nabokov in Print
- Works by or about Vladimir Nabokov at Internet Archive
- Vladmir Nabokov chess compositions at YACPDB
- The Nabokovian (International Vladimir Nabokovian Society)