Intervju Sa Vladimirom Nabokovim

An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov
Author(s): Alfred Appel, Jr. and Vladimir Nabokov

Source: Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 8, No. 2, A Special Number Devoted
to Vladimir Nabokov (Spring, 1967), pp. 127-152
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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AN INTERVIEW WITH
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
ConductedbyAlfred
Appel,Jr.
Q. For yearsbibliographers and literary didn'tknow

journalists
whetherto groupyou under"Russian"or "American." Now that
you'relivingin Switzerland there seems to be completeagreement
thatyou'reAmerican. Do you findthiskindof distinction at all
importantregarding youridentity as a writer?*
A. I havealwaysmaintained, evenas a schoolboyin Russia,that
the nationalityof a worthwhile writeris of secondary importance.
The moredistinctive an insect'saspect,thelessaptis thetaxonomist
to glancefirst
of all at thelocalitylabelunderthepinnedspecimen
in orderto decidewhichof severalvaguely describedracesit should
be assignedto. The writer's art is his real passport.His identity
shouldbe immediately recognized by a specialpatternor unique
coloration.His habitatmayconfirm the correctnessof the deter-
* This interview was conductedon September25, 27, 28, 29, 1966, at

Montreux, Switzerland. Mr. Nabokovand his wifehave forthe last six years
livedin an opulenthotelbuiltin 1835,whichstillretainsitsnineteenth-century
atmosphere. Theirsuiteofroomsis on thesixthfloor, Lake Geneva,
overlooking
and the soundsof the lake are audiblethroughthe open doorsof theirsmall
balcony.Since Mr. Nabokovdoes not like to talk offthe cuff(or "Off the
Nabocuff," as he said) no taperecorder
was used.Mr. Nabokoveitherwroteout
his answersto the questionsor dictatedthemto the interviewer; in some in-
stances,notesfromthe conversation werelaterrecastas formalquestions-and-
answers.The interviewer was Nabokov'sstudentat CornellUniversity
in 1954,
and the references are to Literature311-312 [MWF, 12], a courseon the
Masterpiecesof European Fiction (JaneAusten,Gogol, Dickens,Flaubert,
Tolstoy,Stevenson, Kafka,Joyce,and Proust).Its enrollment
had reachedfour
hundredby the timeof Nabokov'sresignation in 1959. The footnotesto the
interview,except where are
indicated, provided by the -
interviewer. A.A.
WISCONSIN STUDIES VIII, 2
minationbut should not lead to it. Locality labels are known to
have been fakedby unscrupulousinsect dealers.Apart fromthese
considerationsI thinkof myselftodayas an Americanwriterwho
has once been a Russian one.
Q. The Russian writersyou have translatedand writtenabout all

precedethe so-called"age of realism,"whichis more celebratedby
Englishand Americanreadersthan is the earlierperiod.Would you
say somethingabout your temperamental with
or artisticaffinities
the greatwritersof the 1830-40 era of masterpieces.Do you see
yourown workfallingundersuch generalrubricsas a traditionof
Russian humor?
A. The questionof the affinities I may thinkI have or not have
with nineteenth-century not a
Russian writersis a classificational,
confessionalmatter.There is hardlya singleRussianmajorwriterof
the pastwhompigeon-holers have not mentionedin connectionwith
me. Pushkin'sblood runsthroughthe veinsof modernRussianlitera-
as Shakespeare'sthroughthoseof Englishliterature.
tureas inevitably
Q. Many of the major Russian writers,such as Pushkin,Lermon-

tov, and Bely, have distinguishedthemselvesin both poetryand
prose, an uncommon accomplishmentin English and American
Does thissignalfacthave anythingto do withthe special
literature.
natureof Russianliterary culture,or are theretechnicalor linguistic
resourceswhichmake this more possiblein Rus-
kind of versatility
sian?And as a writerof both proseand poetry,what distinctions do
you make between them?
A. On the otherhand, neitherGogol nor Tolstoy nor Chehov**
weredistinguished versificators.Moreover,the dividingline between
prose and poetryin some of the greatestEnglishor Americannovels
is noteasyto draw. supposeyoushouldhave used the term"rhymed
I
poetry"in yourquestionand then one mightanswerthat Russian
rhymesare incomparablymore attractiveand more abundantthan
English ones. No wonder a Russian prose writerfrequentsthose
beauties,especiallyin his youth.
Q. Who are the greatAmericanwritersyou most admire?
** [The spellingof "Dostoevski"(withan i) and "Chehov" (no k) is

Nabokov's.-Ed.]
128 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
A. When I was youngI liked Poe, and I stilllove Melville,whom
I did not read as a boy. My feelingstowardsJamesare rathercom-
plicated.I reallydislikehim intenselybut now and then the figure
in the phrase,the turnof the epithet,the screwof an absurdadverb,
cause me a kind of electrictingle,as if some currentof his was also
passing throughmy own blood. Hawthorneis a splendid writer.
Emerson'spoetryis delightful.
Q. You have often said that you "don't belong to any club or
group,"and I wonderif the historicalexamplesof the waysRussian
writershave allowed ideologyto determineif not destroytheirart,
culminating in the SocialistRealismof our own time,have not gone
a long way in shapingyourown skepticismand aversionto didacti-
cism of any kind.Which "historicalexamples"have you been most
consciousof?
A. My aversionto groupsis rathera matterof temperament than
the fruitof informationand thought.I was born thatwayand have
despised ideologicalcoercion instinctively
all my life. Those "his-
toricalexamples"by the wayare not as clear-cutand obviousas you
seem to imply.The mysticaldidacticismof Gogol or the utilitarian
moralismof Tolstoy,or the reactionaryjournalismof Dostoevski,are
of theirown poor makingand in the long run nobodyreallytakes
them seriouslh.
Q. Would you say somethingabout the controversy

surrounding
the Chernyshevski biographyin The Gift?You have commentedon
thisbriefly before,but since its suppressionin the 'thirtiesexpresses
such a transcendent ironyand seemsto justifythe need forjust such
a parody,I thinkyourreaderswould be most interested, especially
since so littleis knownabout the &migr6communities,theirmaga-
zines,and the roleof intellectualsin thesecommunities.If you would
like to describesomethingof the writer'srelationshipto this world,
please do.
A. Everything that can be profitably said about Count Godunov-
Cherdyntsev'sbiographyof Chernyshevski has been said by Kon-
cheyev in The Gift. I can only add that I devoted as much honest
labor to the task of gatheringthe materialfor the Chernyshevski
chapteras I did to the composingof Shade's poem forhim.As to the
suppressionof that chapterby the editorsof SovremennyeZapiski,
it was indeedan unprecedented occurrence, quite out of keepingwith
AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV 129
theirexceptionalbroadmindedness for,generallyspeaking,in their
acceptanceor rejectionof literaryworkstheywereguidedexclusively
by artisticstandards.As to the latterpart of your question, the
revisedchapterfourteenin Speak, Memorywill provideadditional
information.
Q. Do you have any opinionsabout the Russian anti-utopiantra-

dition (if it can be called this) fromOdoevsky's"The Last Suicide"
and "A City Without a Name" in RussianNightsto Briusov'sThe
Republic of the SouthernCross and Zamiatin'sWe (to name only
a few)?
A. I am indifferent to those works.
Q. Is it fairto saythatInvitation andBendSinister

to a Beheading
are cast as mock anti-utopiannovels,with theirideologicalcenters
removed-thetotalitarianstate becomingan extremeand fantastic
metaphorforthe imprisonment of the mind,thusmakingconscious-
ness,rather than politics, subjectof thesenovels?
the
A. Yes, possibly.
Q. Speakingof ideology,you have oftenexpressedyour hostility

to Freud,mostnoticeablyin the forewords to yourtranslatednovels.
Some readershave wonderedwhichof Freud'sworksor theoriesyou
were most offendedby and why.The parodiesof Freud in Lolita
and Pale Fire suggesta widerfamiliaritywiththe good doctorthan
you have everpubliclygranted.Would you commenton this?
A. Oh, I am not up to discussingagain that figureof fun. He is
not worthyof moreattentionthan I have grantedhim in my novels
and in Speak, Memory.Let the credulousand the vulgarcontinue
to believethatall mentalwoes can be curedby a dailyapplicationof
old Greekmythsto theirprivateparts.I reallydo not care.
Q. Your contemptfor Freud's "standardizedsymbols"extendsto

theassumptions ofa good manyothertheorizers.Do youthinkliterary
criticismis at all purposeful,
and if so, whatkind of criticismwould
you point to? Pale Fire makesit clear what sortyou findgratuitous
(at best).
criticwould be as follows.Learn
A. My adviceto a buddingliterary
banality.Rememberthatmediocrity
to distinguish thriveson "ideas."
130 CONTEMhPORARY LITERATURE
Bewareof themodishmessage. Askyourself ifthesymbolyouhave
detectedis not yourownfootprint.Ignoreallegories. By all means
placethe"how" abovethe"what"but do not let it be confusedwith
the"so what."Relyon thesuddenerection ofyoursmalldorsalhairs.
Do notdragin Freudat thispoint.All therestdependson personal
talent.
Q. As a writer,
have you everfoundcriticism
instructive-not
so
muchthereviews ofyourownbooks,butanygeneral criticism? From
yourown experiences do you thinkthatan academicand literary
careernourish one another? Sincemanywriters todayknowno other
thana lifeon campusI'd be veryinterested
alternative in yourfeelings
aboutthis.Do youthinkthatyourownworkin Americawasat all
shapedbyyourbeingpartofan academiccommunity?
A. I findcriticismmostinstructive whenan expert provestomethat
my or
facts are
mygrammar wrong. An academic careeris especially
helpfulto writersin two ways:1) easy accessto magnificentlibraries
and2) longvacations. Thereis ofcoursethebusiness ofteaching but
oldprofessorshaveyounginstructors tocorrect examinationpapersfor
them,andyounginstructors, authorsin theirownright, arefollowed
byadmiring glancesalongthecorridors ofVanityHall.Otherwise, our
rewards,
greatest suchas thereverberationsofourmindsin suchminds
as vibrateresponsivelyin lateryears,forcenovelist-teachers
to nurse
and of
lucidity honesty style in their
lectures.
Q. Whatarethepossibilitiesofliterarybiography?
A. Theyaregreatfunto write, lessfunto read.Sometimes
generally
thethingbecomesa kindofdoublepaperchase:first, thebiographer
hisquarry
pursues through letters and acrossthebogsof
and diaries,
and
conjecture, thena rivalauthority the
pursues muddybiographer.
Q. Somecriticsmayfindtheuse of coincidence
in a novelarchor
contrived. I recallthatyou yourselfat CornellcalledDostoevski's
usageof coincidence crude.
A. Butin "real"lifetheydo happen.Lastnightyouweretellingus
atdinner a veryfunny storyabouttheuseofthetitle"Doctor"inGer-
many, and the next
very moment, as myloudlaughterwassubsiding, I
a
heard person at thenexttablesayingto herneighborin clearFrench
tonescomingthrough thetinklingandshufflingsoundsofa restaurant
-[turning to his as
wife]just you can hearat thismoment thetrilling
of thatlittlegrebeon the lake throughthe soundsof the traffic-"Of
course,you neverknowwiththe Germansif 'Doctor' meansa dentist
or a lawyer."Veryoftenyoumeetwithsome personor some eventin
"real"lifethatwouldsoundpat in a story.It is not the coincidencein
the storythatbothersus so much as the coincidenceof coincidences
in severalstoriesby different as, forinstance,the recurrent
writers,
eavesdropping devicein nineteenth-centuryRussianfiction.
Q. Could you tell us somethingabout yourworkhabitsas a writer,

and the way you composeyournovels.Do you use an outline?Do
you have a full sense of wherea fictionis headingeven while you
are in the earlystagesof composition?
A. In my twentiesand earlythirties,I used to write,dippingpen
in ink and usinga new nib everyotherday,in exercisebooks,cross-
ing out, inserting,strikingout again,crumplingthe page, rewriting
everypage threeor fourtimes,thencopyingout the novelin a differ-
ent inkand a neaterhand,thenrevisingthe whole thingonce more,
re-copying it with new corrections,and finallydictatingit to my
wifewho has typedout all mystuff.Generallyspeaking,I am a slow
writer,a snail carryingits house at the rateof two hundredpages of
finalcopyper year (one spectacularexceptionwas the Russian origi-
nal of Invitationto a Beheading,the firstdraftof which I wrotein
one fortnight of wonderfulexcitementand sustainedinspiration).
In those daysand nightsI generallyfollowedthe orderof chapters
whenwritinga novelbut even so, fromthe veryfirst, I reliedheavily
on mentalcomposition,constructing whole paragraphsin my mind
as I walkedin the streetsor sat in my bath,or lay in bed, although
oftendeletingor rewriting themlater.In the late 'thirties,
beginning
with The Gift,and perhapsunderthe influenceof the manynotes
needed, I switchedto another,physicallymore practical,method-
that of writingwith an eraser-capped pencil on index cards. Since
I alwayshave at the verystarta curiouslyclearpreviewof the entire
novel beforeme or above me, I find cards especiallyconvenient
when not followingthe logical sequence of chaptersbut preparing
insteadthis or that passageat any point of the novel and fillingin
the gaps in no specialorder.I am afraidto get mixedup withPlato
whomI do not carefor,but I do thinkthatin mycase it is truethat
the entirebook,beforeit is written, seemsto be readyideallyin some
other,now transparent, now dimming,dimension,and my job is
to take down as much of it as I can make out and as preciselyas I
132 CONTEMiPORARY LITERATURE
am humanlyable to. The greatesthappinessI experiencein compos-
ing is when I feel I cannot understand,or rathercatch myselfnot
understanding(without the presuppositionof an alreadyexisting
creation) how or whythat image or structural move has just come
to me. It is sometimesratheramusingto findmy readerstryingto
elucidatein a matter-of-fact
waythesewild workingsof my not very
efficient
mind.
Q. One oftenhearsfromwriterstalk of how a charactertakeshold

of them and in a sense dictatesthe course of the action. Has this
everbeen yourexperience?
A. I have neverexperiencedthis.What a preposterous experience!
Writerswho havehad it mustbe veryminoror insane.No, the design
of my novel is fixedin my imaginationand everycharacterfollows
the courseI imagineforhim. I am the perfectdictatorin that pri-
vateworldinsofaras I alone am responsibleforits stability
and truth.
Whether I reproduceit as fullyand faithfully as I would wish,is
anotherquestion. Some of my old works reveal dismal blurrings
and blanks.
Q. Pale Fire appearsto some readersto be in parta glosson Plato's

mythof the cave, and the constantplay of Shades and Shadows
throughoutyourwork suggestsa consciousPlatonism.Would you
care to commenton this possibility?
A. As I have said I am not particularlyfond of Plato, nor would
I surviveverylong under his Germanicregimeof militarismand
music.I do not thinkthatthiscave businesshas anythingto do with
my Shade and Shadows.
Q. Since we are mentioningphilosophyper se, I wonder if we

mighttalk about the philosophyof languagethat seems to unfold
in yourworks,and whetheror not you have consciouslyseen the
say,betweenthe languageof Zemblan and what Ludwig
similarities,
Wittgensteinhad to say about a "privatelanguage." Your poet's
sense of the limitationsof languageis startlingly similarto Witt-
genstein'sremarkson the referential basis of language.While you
wereat Cambridge,did you have much contactwiththe philosophy
faculty?
A. No contactwhatsoever.I am completelyignorantof Wittgen-
stein'sworks,and the firsttime I heardhis name musthave been in
the 'fifties.
In CambridgeI playedfootballand wroteRussian verse.
"I stand
Q. When in Canto Two JohnShade describeshimself,
beforethe windowand I pare/Myfingernails," you are echoing
Stephen Dedalus in A Portraitof the as
Artist a YoungMan, on
the artistwho "remains within or behind or beyondor above his
handiwork, refined
invisible, out of existence,
indifferent,paringhis
In
fingernails." almost all of yournovels, especiallyin Invitationto
a Beheading, BendSinister, Pale Fire,andPnin-butevenin Lolita,
in thepersonof theseventhhunterin Quilty'splay,and in several
otherphosphorescent glimmers whicharevisibleto thecareful reader
-the creatoris indeedbehindor abovehis handiwork, but he is
notinvisibleand surely notindifferent.To whatextentareyoucon-
sciously"answering" Joycein Pale Fire,and whatare yourfeelings
abouthisesthetic stance-orallegedstance,becauseperhapsyoumay
thinkthatStephen'sremark doesn'tapplyto Ulysses?
A. NeitherKinbotenorShade,northeirmaker, is answering Joyce
I
in Pale Fire.Actually, neverliked A Portrait
of the Artistas a
YoungMan. I findit a feebleand garrulous book.The phraseyou
quote is an unpleasant coincidence.
you,and I
Q. You havegrantedthatPierreDelalandeinfluenced
wouldreadilyadmitthatinfluence-mongering can be reductiveand
deeply if
offensive it tries
to deny a writer's But
originality. in the
instance andJoyce,
ofyourself it seemsto me thatyou'veconsciously
profitedfrom Joyce'sexamplewithoutimitating him-thatyou've
realizedtheimplicationsin Ulysseswithouthavinghad recourse to
obviously"Joycean" devices the
(stream-of-consciousness, "collage"
createdout of thevastflotsam
effects and jetsamof everydaylife).
Would youcommenton whatJoycehas meantto youas a writer,
hisimportancein regardto hisliberationand expansionofthenovel
forin?
A. My first realcontactwithUlysses, aftera leeringglimpsein the
at a timewhenI was definitely
was in the 'thirties
early'twenties,
formed as a writerand immuneto anyliterary I studied
influence.
Ulyssesseriouslyonlymuch in
later, the when
'fifties, preparingmy
Cornellcourses.That was thebestpartof theeducationI received
at Cornell.Ulyssestowersoverthe restof Joyce'swritings, and in
comparison and uniquelucidityof thought
to its nobleoriginality
andstyletheunfortunate Finnegans Wake is nothing buta formless
anddullmassofphonyfolklore, a coldpuddingofa book,a persist-
entsnorein thenextroom,mostaggravating to theinsomniac I am.
Moreover, fullof quaintold-
I alwaysdetestedregionalliterature
timersand imitatedpronunciation. Finnegans Wake's faqadedis-
and drabtenement
guisesa veryconventional house,and onlythe
infrequentsnatchesof heavenlyintonations redeem it fromutter
I
insipidity. know I am going to be excommunicated for this
pronouncement.
the involutedstruc-
Q. AlthoughI cannotrecallyourmentioning
tureof Ulysseswhenyou lecturedon Joyce,I do remember your
insistingthat the hallucinations in Nighttown are the author's and
notStephen'sor Bloom's,whichis one stepawayfroma discussion
oftheinvolution. This is an aspectof Ulyssesalmosttotallyignored
bytheJoyceIndustry, and an aspectof Joycewhichwouldseemto
be of greatinterest to you.If Joyce's somewhat inconsistent involu-
tionstendto be obscured by the vastnessof his it
structures,might
be said thatthe structuring of yournovelsdependson the strategy
of involution. Could youcommenton this,or compareyoursense
ofJoyce's presence in and abovehisworkswithyourownintention
-that is, Joyce'scovertappearances in Ulysses;the wholeShake-
speare-paternity themewhichultimately spiralsintotheidea of the
"parentage" of Ulyssesitself;Shakespeare'sdirectaddressto Joycein
Nighttown("How my Oldfellow chokithis Thursday-momum,"
thatbeingBloomsday); and Molly'splea to Joyce,"O Jamesy let
me up out of this"-allthisas againstthewaytheauthorial voice-
orwhatyoucallthe"anthropomorphic deityimpersonated byme"-
again and in
againappears yournovels, most strikinglyat the end.
A. One of the reasonsBloom cannotbe the activepartyin the
Nighttown chapter(and if he is not,thenthe authoris directly
dreaming up forhim,and aroundhim,withsomerealepisodes
it
insertedhereand there)is thatBloom,a wiltingmaleanyway, has
beendrainedofhis manhoodearlierin theevening and thus would
be quiteunlikely to indulgein the violentsexualfanciesof Night-
town.ButI planto publishmynoteson Ulysses, andwillnotpursue
thematternow.'
or reactto "the end"

Q. Ideally,how shoulda readerexperience
of one of yournovels,thatmomentwhenthevectorsare removed
1Nabokovis planning andKafka

bothhisJoyce
to publishin book-form
lectures.
and the factof the fictionis underscored,the cast dismissed?What
commonassumptionsabout literature are you assaulting?
A. The question is so charminglyphrased that I would love to
answerit withequal eleganceand eloquence,but I cannot say very
much.I thinkthatwhat I would welcomeat the close of a book of
mineis a sensationof its worldrecedingin the distanceand stopping
somewherethere suspendedafar like a picturein a picture: The
Artist'sStudio by Van Bock.2
Q. It may well be a failureof perception,but I've alwaysbeen

unsureof the verylast sentencesof Lolita, perhapsbecause the shift
in voice at the close of yourotherbooks is so clear,but is one sup-
posed to "hear" a different voice when the masked narratorsays
"And do not pityC.Q. One had to choose betweenhim and H.H.,
and one wantedH.H. .. ." and so forth?The returnto the firstper-
son in the nextsentencemakesme thinkthatthe maskhas not been
lifted,but readerstrainedon Invitationto a Beheading,amongother
books,are alwayslookingforthe imprintof that "masterthumb,"
to quote FranklinLane in Pale Fire,"thatmade the whole involuted,
bogglingthingone beautifulstraightline."
A. No, I did not mean to introducea different voice. I did want,
to
however, convey a of
constriction the sickheart,a warn-
narrator's
ing spasmcausinghim to abridgenames and hastento concludehis
tale beforeit was too late. I am glad I managed to achieve this
remotenessof tone at the end.
Q. Do FranklinLane's Lettersexist?I don't wish to appear like

Mr. Goodman in The Real Life of SebastianKnight,but I under-
stand that FranklinLane did exist.
A. FrankLane, his publishedletters,and the passagecited by Kin-
bote, certainlyexist.Kinbotewas ratherstruckby Lane's handsome
melancholyface. And of course "lane" is the last word of Shade's
poem. The latterhas no significance.
Q. In which of yourearlyworksdo you thinkyou firstbegin to
2Researchhas failed to confirmthe existenceof this alleged "Dutch

stepawayfrombeinga significant
Master,"whosenameis onlyan alphabetical
anagram,a poor relationof Quilty'sanagrammatic mistress,"Vivian Dark-
bloom."
face the possibilitiesthat are fullydeveloped in Invitationto a
Beheading and reach an apotheosis in the "involute abode" of
Pale Fire?
A. Possiblyin The Eye, but Invitationto a Beheadingis on the
whole a spontaneousgeneration.
Q. Are there other writerswhose involutedeffectsyou admire?

Sterne?Pirandello'splays?
A. I nevercaredforPirandello.I love Sternebut had not readhim
in my Russian period.
Q. The Afterwordto Lolita is significant,

obviously,for many
reasons.Is it included in all the translationswhich,I understand,
numberabout twenty-five?
A. Yes.
Q. You once told me aftera class at Cornell that you'd been

unable to read more than one hundredor so pages of Finnegans
Wake. As it happens,on p. 104 therebeginsa sectionveryclose in
spiritto Pale Fire, and I wonderif you've ever read this, or seen
the similarity.
It is the historyof all the editionsand interpretations
of Anna Livia Plurabelle'sLetter (or "Mamafesta,"text included).
Amongthe threepageslistingthe varioustitlesof ALP's letter,Joyce
includesTryour Taal on a Taub (which we are alreadydoing), and
I wonderedif you would commenton Swift'scontributionto the
literatureabout the corruptionof learningand literature.Is it only
a coincidencethatKinbote's"Foreword"to Pale Fire is dated "Oct.
19," whichis the date of Swift'sdeath?
A. I finishedFinnegansWake eventually.It has no innerconnec-
tion withPale Fire. I thinkit is so nice thatthe day on whichKin-
bote committedsuicide (and he certainlydid afterputtingthe last
touchesto his editionof the poem) happens to be both the anni-
versaryof Pushkin'sLyceum and that of "poor old man Swift" 's
death,whichis newsto me (but see variantin note to line 231). In
commonwith Pushkin,I am fascinatedby fatidicdates. Moreover,
when datingsome special eventin my novelsI oftenchoose a more
or less familiarone as a pointde repmre,whichhelps to checka pos-
sible misprintin the proofs,as forinstance"April1" in the diaryof
Hermann in Despair.
AN INTERVIEWV WITH NABOKOV 137
Q. MentionofSwiftmovesmeto askaboutthegenreofPale Fire;
as a "monstrous
semblance
ofa novel,"do youseeit in termsofsome
tradition
or form?
A. The formof Pale Fire is specifically, new.I
if not generically,
wouldliketo takethispleasantopportunity to correctthe follow-
ing misprintsin the Putnam edition1962, second impression: On
p. 137, end of note to line 143, "rustic"should be "rusty."On
p. 151,"CatskinWeek" shouldbe "CatkinWeek." On p. 223,the
linenumberin thereference at theend of thefirstnoteshouldnot
be "550" but "549." On p. 237, top, "For" shouldbe "for."On
p. 241, the word"lines"after"disent-prise" shouldbe "rhymes."
Andon p. 294,thecommaafter"Arnold"shouldbe replacedbyan
openparenthesis. Thankyou.3
Q. Do youmakea cleardistinction betweensatireand parody?I

askthisbecauseyouhaveso oftensaidyoudo notwishto be taken
as a "moralsatirist,"
andyetparodyis so centralto yourvision.
A. Satireis a lesson,parodyis a game.
Q. Chapterten in The Real Life of SebastianKnightcontainsa

wonderful of howparodyfunctions
description in yourownnovels.
But yoursenseof whatparodymeansseemsto stretchthe usual
as whenCincinnatus
definition, in Invitation
to a Beheadingtells
his mother,"You're still only a parody... Justlike this spider,
justlikethosebars,justlikethestriking ofthatclock."All art,then,
or at leastall attempts art,wouldseemto produce
at a "realistic"
a distortion,a "parody."Would youexpandon whatyoumeanby
parody why,as Fyodorsaysin The Gift,"The spiritof parody
and
alwaysgoesalongwithgenuinepoetry"?
A. When the poet CincinnatusC., in my dreamiest and most
poeticalnovel, accuses (not quite fairly)his motherof beinga
3 Since Mr. Nabokovhas opened an ErrataDepartment,the following

misprints fromthe LancerBookspaperbackeditionof Pale Fire, 1963, should
be noted:on p. 17, fifth line frombottomof middleparagraph, "sad" should
be "saw."On p. 60, noteto lines47-48, line 21 shouldbe "burstan appendix,"
not "and." On p. 111, fourthline of note to line 172, "inscription" is mis-
pelled. On p. 158, last sentence of note to line 493, "filfth"
shouldbe "filth."
Nabokov'sotherbooksarerelatively freefrommisprints, exceptforthePopular
Library editionofThe Gift,1963,whoseblemishes
paperback aretoonumer-
ous to mention.
138 j CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
parody,he uses the word in its familiarsense of "grotesqueimita-
tion." When Fyodor,in The Gift,alludes to that "spiritof parody"
which plays around the sprayof genuine "serious" poetry,he is
to parodyin the sense of an essentiallylighthearted,
referring deli-
cate, mocking-bird
game, such as Pushkin's of
parody Derzhavinin
Exegi Monumentum.
Q. What is youropinionof Joyce'sparodies?Do you see anydiffer-

ence in the artisticeffectof scenessuch as the maternity
hospitaland
the beach interludewith GertyMacdowell? Are you familiarwith
the work of youngerAmericanwriterswho have been influenced
by both you and Joyce,such as Thomas Pynchon (a Cornellian,
Class of '59, who surelywas in Literature312), and do you have
any opinionon the currentascendancyof the so-calledparody-novel
(John Barth,for instance)?
A. The literaryparodiesin the Maternal Hospital chapterare on
the whole jejunish.Joyceseemsto have been hamperedby the gen-
eral sterilizedtone he chose for that chapter,and this somehow
dulled and monotonizedthe inlaid skits.On the other hand, the
frillynoveletteparodiesin the Masturbationscene are highlysuc-
cessful;and the suddenburstingof its clich6sinto the fireworks and
tenderskyof real poetryis a featof genius.I am not familiarwith
the worksof the two otherwritersyou mention.4
Q. Why, in Pale Fire, do you call parodythe "last resortof wit"?

A. This is Kinbotespeaking.There are people whomparodyupsets.
Q. Are the compositionof Lolita and Speak, Memory,two very

different
books about the spell exertedby the past,at all connected
in the way that the translationsof The Song of Igor's Campaign
and Eugene Onegin are relatedto Pale Fire? Had you finishedall
the notesto Onegin beforeyou began Pale Fire?
A. This is the kind of questionthat can be only answeredby the
interrogator himself.The task of ponderingsuch juxtapositions
and
contrastsis above my capacities.Yes, I had finishedall my notes
to Onegin beforeI began Pale Fire. Flaubertspeaks in one of his
letters,in relationto a certainscene in Madame Bovary,about the
4Mrs. Nabokov,whogradedherhusband'sexaminationpapers,did remem-

berPynchon, halfprinting,
but onlyforhis "unusual"handwriting: halfscript.
of painting
difficulty couleursurcouleur.This in a wayis whatI
triedto do in retwisting myown experiencewheninventing Kin-
bote. Speak,Memoryis strictly autobiographic.There is nothing
autobiographicin Lolita.
Q. Although seemsto be a vitalpartofyourwork,you

self-parody
area writer whobelievespassionatelyin theprimacy oftheimagina-
tion.Yet yournovelsare filledwithlittledetailsthatseemto have
been purposely pulledfromyourown life,as a readingof Speak,
Memorymakesclear,not to mentionthe overriding patterns,such
as the lepidopteral motif,whichextendthroughso manybooks.
Theyseemto partakeof something otherthantheinvoluted voice,
to suggest someclearlyheldideaabouttheinterrelationship between
self-knowledge and artistic
creation,
self-parodyand identity.
Would
you comment on and
this, the of
significance autobiographical hints
in worksofartthatareliterally notautobiographical?
A. I wouldsaythatimagination is a formofmemory. Down,Plato,
down,good dog. An imagedependson the powerof association,
and associationis suppliedand prompted by memory. When we
speak of a vividindividual
recollectionwe are a
paying compliment
not to our capacityof retention but to Mnemosyne's mysterious
foresight in havingstoredup thisor thatelementwhichcreative
imagination may use when combiningit withlater recollections
and inventions. In thissense,bothmemory and imagination are a
negation of time.
Q. C. P. Snowhas complainedaboutthe gulfbetweenthe "two

cultures,"theliteraryand scientific communities.As someonewho
has bridgedthisgulf,do you see the sciencesand humanities as
necessarilyopposed? Have yourexperiences as a influenced
scientist
yourperformance Is it fanciful
as an artist? to use thevocabularyof
physicsin describingthestructures ofsomeofyournovels?
A. I wouldhavecompared myselfto a ColossusofRhodesbestrid-
ing the gulfbetweenthe thermodynamics of Snow and Laurento-
maniaof Leavis,had thatgulfnot been a meredimpleof a ditch
thata smallfrogcouldstraddle.
The terms"physics" and "egghead"
as usednowadays evokein me thedreary of
image appliedscience,
theknackof an electrician
tinkeringwithbombsand othergadgets.
One of those"Two Cultures"is reallynothingbut utilitarian
tech-
nology;the otheris popularart.
B-gradenovels,ideologicalfiction,
140 j CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Who caresif thereexistsa gap betweensuch "physics"and such
"humanities." Those Eggheadsare terrible A realgood
philistines.
headis notovalbutround.
My passionforlepidopterological research,in the field,in the
in
laboratory, the library,is even more pleasurablethanthe study
and practiceof literature,whichis sayinga good deal. Lepidopter-
istsare obscurescientists.Not one is mentioned in Webster.But
nevermind.I havere-worked theclassificationof variousgroupsof
havedescribed
butterflies, and figured severalspeciesand sub-species.
My namesforthe microscopic organsthat I have been the first
to see and portray have safelyfoundtheirwayintothe biological
dictionaries(whichis poorlymatchedby the wretched entryunder
"nymphet" in Webster'slatest edition).The tactile
delightsofprecise
delineation,the silentparadise of the camera lucida,and the preci-
sionofpoetry in taxonomic description representtheartisticsideof
thethrillthataccumulation of newknowledge, absolutely uselessto
the layman,givesits firstbegetter. Sciencemeansto me aboveall
naturalscience.Not the abilityto repaira radioset; quite stubby
fingerscan do that.Apartfromthisbasicconsideration, I certainly
welcomethefreeinterchange ofterminology betweenanybranchof
scienceandanyracemeofart.Thereis no sciencewithout fancy,and
no artwithoutfacts.Aphoristicism is a symptom of arteriosclerosis.
Q. In Pale Fire,Kinbotecomplainsthat"The comingof summer

represented a problemin optics."The Eye is well-titled, sinceyou
plumb these problemsthroughout the
yourfiction; apprehension
of "reality"is a miracleof vision,and consciousness is virtuallyan
opticalinstrument in yourwork.Have you studiedthe scienceof
opticsat all, and would you saysomething aboutyourown visual
sense,and how you feelit has served your fiction?
A. I am afraidyou are quotingthisout of context.Kinbotewas
simplyannoyedbythespreading foliageof summer interfering with
hisTom-peeping. Otherwise youare rightin suggesting I
that have
good eyes.Doubting Tom should have worn spectacles.It is true,
however, that even withthe best ofvisionsone must touch thingsto
be quitesureof "reality."
and JorgeLuis Borges
Q. You havesaid thatAlainRobbe-Grillet
areamongyourfavorite contemporary Do youfindthemto
writers.
novelsare as freeof
Do youthinkRobbe-Grillet's
be at all similar?
"psychology" as he claims?
A. Robbe-Grillet'sclaims are preposterous.Those manifestosdie
withthe dadas. His fictionis magnificentlypoeticaland original,and
the shiftsof levels,the interpenetration
of successiveimpressions and
so forthbelong of course to psychology-psychology at its best.
Borgesis also a man of infinitetalent,but his miniaturelabyrinths
and the roomyones of Robbe-Grilletare quite differently built,
and the lightingis not the same.
Q. I recall yourhumorousremarksat Cornell about two writers

experiencing"telepathy"(I believe you were comparingDickens
and Flaubert). You and Borgeswereboth bornin 1899 (but so was
Ernest Hemingway!).Your Bend Sinisterand Borges' story"The
CircularRuins" are conceptuallysimilar,but you do not read Spanish
and that storywas firsttranslatedinto English in 1949, two years
afterBend Sinister'sbirth,just as in Borges'"The SecretMiracle,"
Hladik has createda versedramauncannilysimilarto yourrecently
Englishedplay,The Waltz Invention,which precedesBorges' tale,
but whichhe could not have read in Russian.When wereyou first
awareof Borges'fictions,and have you and he had anykind of asso-
ciationor contact,otherthan telepathic?
A. I read a Borgesstoryforthe firsttime threeor fouryearsago.
Up till then I had not been awareof his existence,nor do I believe
he knew,or indeed knows,anythingabout me. That is not very
grandin the wayof telepathy.There are affinities
betweenInvitation
to a Beheadingand The Castle,but I had not yetread Kafkawhen
I wrotemy novel. As to Hemingway,I read him forthe firsttime
in the early 'forties,somethingabout bells, balls and bulls, and
loathedit. LaterI readhis admirable"The Killers"and the wonder-
ful fishstorywhichI was asked to translateinto Russianbut could
not forsome reasonor other.
Q. As a matterof fact,Borgesdoes knowof yourexistence:he was

supposedto contributeto the special issue of the Frenchmagazine
L'Arc whichwas devotedto you, but, forsome reason,he did not.
Your firstbook was a translationof Lewis Carrollinto Russian.Do
you see anyaffinitiesbetweenCarroll'sidea of "nonsense"and your
bogus "mongrel"languagesin Bend Sinisterand Pale Fire?
or
A. In commonwith manyotherEnglishchildren(I was an Eng-
lish child) I have been alwaysveryfond of Carroll.No, I do not
thinkthathis inventedlanguagesharesany rootswithmine. He has
with H.H. but some odd scruplepreventedme
a patheticaffinity
fromalludingin Lolita to his wretchedperversionand to thoseambig-
uous photographshe took in dim rooms. He got away with it, as
so manyotherVictoriansgot awaywithpederastyand nympholepsy.
His weresad scrawnylittlenymphets, bedraggledand half-undressed,
or rathersemi-undraped, as if participatingin some dusty and
dreadfulcharade.
Q. I thoughtthatyou did allude to Carrollin Lolita throughwhat

mightbe called "the photography theme": Humbertcherisheshis
worn old photographof Annabel,has in a sense been livingwith
this "still," triesto make Lolita conformto it, and oftenlaments
his failureto captureher on film.Quilty'shobby is announced as
"photography," and the unspeakablefilmshe producedat the Duk
Duk Ranch would seem to answerCarroll'swildestneeds.
A. I did not consciouslythinkof Carroll'shobbywhen I referred
in Lolita.
to the use of photography
Q. You have had wide experienceas a translatorand have made

What basic problemsof existencedo you
fictiveuse of translation.
in
findimplicit the art and act of translation?
A. There is a certainsmallMalayanbirdof the thrushfamilywhich
is said to sing only when tormentedin an unspeakableway by a
speciallytrainedchild at the annual Feast of Flowers. There is
Casanova makinglove to a harlotwhile lookingfroma windowat
the namelesstorturesinflictedon Damiens. These are the visions
thatsickenme whenI readthe "poetical"translations frommartyred
Russian poets by some of my famouscontemporaries. A tortured
authorand a deceivedreader,this is the inevitableoutcomeof arty
paraphrase.The only object and justificationof translationis the
conveying of the most exact informationpossible and this can be
only achieved a with
by literaltranslation, notes.
Q. Mentionof translationbringsme to one of the Kinbotianprob-

lems faced by criticswho comment on your Russian novels in
but who themselveshave no Russian. It has been said
translation,
that translationssuch as The Defense and Despair must contain
many stylisticrevisions(certainlythe puns), and moreoverare in
generalmuch richerin languagethan Laughterin the Dark, written
at about the same time but, unlike the others,translatedin the
'thirties.Would youcommenton this?If the styleof Laughterin
theDarksuggests it shouldhaveprecededDespair,perhapsit actu-
allywas written much earlier:in the BBC interview of fouryears
ago,5yousaidthatyouwroteLaughter in theDarkwhenyouwere
twenty-six,whichwouldhavebeen 1925,thusmakingit yourfirst
novel.Did youactually writeit thisearly,or is thereferenceto age
a slip in memory, no doubtcausedby the distracting presenceof
the BBC machinery.
A. I touchedup detailshereand therein thosenovelsand rein-
stateda scenein Despair,as the Foreword explains.That "twenty-
six" is certainly
wrong. It is either
a telescopationor I musthave
been thinking of Mashenka,my firstnovelwrittenin 1925. The
Russianoriginal version(KameraObskura)ofLaughter in theDark
was written in 1931,and an Englishtranslation by Winifred Roy,
revisedby me, appearedin Londonin 1936.A year
insufficiently
later,on the Riviera,I attempted-not quite successfully-to
Eng-
lish the thinganew forBobbs-Merrill, who publishedit in New
Yorkin 1938.
Q. There is a parentheticalremarkin Despairabout a "vulgar,

mediocre
Herzog."Is thata bitofaddedfunabouta recent
best-seller?
A. Herzogmeans"Duke" in Germanand I was speakingof a
conventional
statueof a GermanDuke in a citysquare.
Q. Sincethereissued editionofLaughter in theDarkis notgraced

by one of yourinformative forewords, wouldyou tellus something
aboutthebook'sinception and thecircumstances underwhichyou
wroteit? Commentators are quick to suggestsimilaritiesbetween
Margot and Lolita,but I'm much more interestedin the kinship
betweenAxelRex and Quilty.Would you commenton this,and
perhapson theotherperverters oftheimagination onefindsthrough-
outyourwork,all of whomseemto shareRex'sevilqualities.
A. Yes, someaffinities betweenRex and Quiltyexist,as theydo
betweenMargotand Lo. Actually, ofcourse,Margotwasa common
youngwhore, not an unfortunatelittle
Lolita.Anyway I do notthink
thatthoserecurrent sexualodditiesand morbidities are of much
Peter "Vladimir
Duval-Smith, NabokovonhisLifeandWork,"
Listener,
LXVIII (Nov.22, 1962),856-58.Reprinted
as "WhatVladimir
Nabokov
thinksofhisWork,"Vogue,CXLI (March1, 1963), 152-55.
144 1 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
interestor importance.My Lolita has been comparedto Emmie in
Invitation,to Mariette in Bend Sinister,and even to Colette in
Speak,Memory-thelast is especiallyludicrous.But I thinkit might
have been simplyEnglish jollityand leg-pulling."
Q. The Doppelglingermotiffiguresprominently
throughoutyour
fiction;in Pale Fire one is temptedto call it a Tripling(at least).
Would you say that Laughterin the Dark is yourearliestDouble
fiction?
A. I do not see any doubles in Laughterin the Dark. A lovercan
be viewedas the betrayedparty'sdouble but that is pointless.
Q. Would you care to commenton how the Doppelgaingermotif

has been both used and abused fromPoe, Hoffman,Andersen,Dos-
toevski,Gogol, Stevenson,and Melville,down to Conrad and Mann?
Which Doppelglingerfictionswould you singleout forpraise?
A. The Doppelglingersubjectis a frightfulbore.
Q. What are your feelingsabout Dostoevski's celebrated The

Double; afterall, Hermannin Despair considersit as a possibletitle
forhis manuscript.
A. Dostoevski'sThe Double is his best work thoughan obvious
and shamelessimitationof Gogol's "Nose." Felix in Despair is really
a falsedouble.
Q. What are the criteriaof identitywhichhave made this theme

so congenialto you?And what assumptionsabout identityhave you
reactedagainstin fashioningyourown conceptionof the Double?
A. There are no "real" doubles in my novels.
Q. Speakingof Doubles bringsme to Pnin,whichin myexperience

has provedto be one of yourmost popularnovelsand at the same
time one of yourmost elusiveto those readerswho fail to see the
relationshipof the narratorand the characters(or who fail to even
noticethenarrator untilit's too late). Four of its sevenchapterswere
publishedin the New Yorkerovera considerableperiod (1953-57),
8A reference to KingsleyAmis'reviewofLolita,"She wasa Childand I

wasa Child,"Spectator, CCIII (Nov.6, 1959),636.The "leg-pulling"
persists
ofParody,"
in thisissue;see"Lolita:The Springboard p. 220.
but theall-important lastchapter,in whichthe narratortakescontrol,
is onlyin the book. I'd be most interestedto know if the designof
Pnin was completewhilethe separatesectionswerebeingpublished,
or whetheryourfullsenseof its possibilitiesoccurredlater.
A. Yes, the designof Pnin was completein my mindwhen I com-
posed the firstchapterwhich,I believe,in thiscase was actuallythe
firstof the sevenI physically set down on paper.Alas, therewas to
be an additionalchapter,betweenFour (in which,incidentally, both
the boy at St. Mark's and Pnin dreamof a passagefrommy drafts
of Pale Fire, the revolutionin Zembla and the escape of the king-
that is telepathyforyou!) and Five (where Pnin drivesa car). In
that still uninkedchapter,which was beautifullyclear in my mind
down to the last curve, Pnin recoveringin the hospital from a
sprainedback teaches himselfto drivea car in bed by studyinga
1935 manual of automobilismfoundin the hospitallibraryand by
manipulatingthe leversof his cot. Only one of his colleaguesvisits
him there-Professor Blorenge.The chapterended withPnin's taking
his driver'sexaminationand pedanticallyarguingwiththe instructor
who has to admit Pnin is right.A combinationof chance circum-
stancesin 1956 preventedme fromactuallywritingthatchapter,then
othereventsintervened, and it is onlya mummynow.
Q. In a televisioninterviewlast year,you singledout Bely's St.

Petersburg,along with worksby Joyce,Kafka,and Proust,as one
of the greatestachievementsin twentieth-century
prose (an endorse-
ment,by the way,which has promptedGrove Press to reissueSt.
Petersburg,with your statementacross the frontcover). I greatly
admirethis novel but, unhappilyenough,it is relativelyunknown
in America.What are its qualitieswhichyou mostadmire?Bely and
Joyceare sometimescompared;is the comparisona just one?
A. Petersburgis a splendidfantasy,but this is a question I plan
to answerin my essayon Joyce.There does existsome resemblance
in mannerbetweenPetersburgand certainpassagesin Ulysses.
Q. AlthoughI've neverseen it discussedas such, the Ableukhov

father-son to me constitutesa doubling,makingPeters-
relationship
burg one of the most of the
and fantasticpermutations
interesting
Doppelg.ingertheme. Since this kind of doubling (if you would
agree it is one) is surelythe kind you'd findmore congenial,say,
than the use Mann makesof the motifin Death in Venice, would
you commenton its implications?
A. Those murkymattershave no importanceto me as a writer.
I am an indivisiblemonist.
Philosophically,
Q. Bely lived in Berlinin 1922-23. Did you knowhim there?You

and Joycelived in Parisat the same time;did you evermeet him?
A. Once, in 1921 or 1922,at a Berlinrestaurant whereI was dining
with two girls.I happened to be sittingback to back with Andrey
Bely who was diningwith anotherwriter,AlekseyTolstoy,at the
table behind me. Both writerswere at the time franklypro-Soviet
(and on the point of returning to Russia), and a White Russian,
which I still am in that particularsense,would certainlynot wish
to speak to a bolshevizan(fellow traveller).I was acquaintedwith
AlekseyTolstoybut of courseignoredhim. As to Joyce,I saw him
a fewtimesin Paris in the late 'thirties.Paul and Lucy Leon, close
friendsof his,werealso old friendsof mine.One nighttheybrought
him to a French lectureI had been asked to deliveron Pushkin
underthe auspicesof Gabriel Marcel (it was laterpublishedin the
NouvelleRevue Franqaise).I had happenedto replaceat theverylast
momenta Hungarianwomanwriter, veryfamousthatwinter,author
of a bestsellingnovel, I rememberits title,La Rue du Chat qui
Peche, but not the lady's name. A numberof personalfriendsof
mine,fearingthat the sudden illnessof the lady and a sudden dis-
courseon Pushkinmightresultin a suddenlyemptyhouse,had done
theirbest to roundup the kind of audiencetheyknew I would like
to have.The house had, however,a pied aspectsincesome confusion
had occurredamong the lady's fans.The Hungarianconsul mistook
me forher husbandand, as I entered,dashed towardsme with the
frothof condolenceon his lips. Some people leftas soon as I started
to speak.A sourceof unforgettable consolationwas the sightof Joyce
sitting,arms folded and glassesglinting,in the midstof the Hun-
garian football team. Another time my wifeand I had dinnerwith
him at the Lions followed by a long friendly eveningof talk. I do
not recallone word of it but my wiferemembersthat Joyceasked
about the exactingredients of myod,the Russian"mead," and every-
body gave him a differentanswer.In this connection,there is a
marveloushowler in the standard English versionof The Brothers
Karamazov: a supper table at Zosima's abode is described with the
translatorhilariouslymisreading"M6doc" (in Russian transliteration
in the originaltext),a Frenchwinegreatlyappreciatedin Russia,
as medok,thediminutive ofmyod(mead). It wouldhavebeenfun
I cameacross
butunfortunately
to recallthatI spokeofthisto Joyce
thisincarnation of The Karamazovssome ten yearslater.
Q. You mentioned Tolstoya momentago.Would yousay

Aleksey
something abouthim?
A. He wasa writer ofsometalentand has twoor threesciencefic-
tionstoriesor novelswhichare memorable. But I wouldn'tcareto
categorize the
writers, onlycategory beingoriginalityand talent.
Afterall, if we startsticking we'll
grouplabels, have to put "The
Tempest"in the SF category, and of coursethousandsof other
valuableworks.
and his earlyworkpre-

an anti-Bolshevik,
Q. Tolstoywas initially
cedestheRevolution. Arethereanywriters oftheSovietperiod
totally
whomyouadmire?
A. There werea fewwriters who discoveredthatif theychose
certainplotsand certaincharacters theycouldget awaywithit in
the politicalsense,in otherwords,theywouldn'tbe told whatto
writeand how to finishthenovel.Ilf and Petrov,twowonderfully
giftedwriters, decidedthatif theyhad a rascaladventurer as pro-
tagonist,whatever theywroteabout his adventures could not be
criticizedfroma politicalpointof view,sincea perfectrascalor
a madmanor a delinquentor anypersonwho was outsideSoviet
society-inotherwords,any picaresquecharacter-could not be
accusedeitherofbeinga bad Communist or notbeinga goodCom-
munist.Thus Ilf and Petrov,Zoshchenko, and Olesha managed
to publishsomeabsolutely fictionunderthatstandardof
first-rate
completeindependence, sincethesecharacters, plots,and themes
couldnotbe treatedas politicalones.Untilthe early'thirties they
to
managed getaway with it. The poetshad a parallelsystem.They
thought, and theywererightat first, thatiftheystuckto thegarden
-to purepoetry, to lyricalimitations,say,of gypsysongs,such as
Ilya Selvinski's-thatthentheyweresafe.Zabolotski founda third
methodofwriting, as ifthe"I" ofthepoemwerea perfect imbecile,
crooning in a dream,distorting words,playing with words as a
half-insane personwould. All thesepeople wereenormously gifted
but the regimefinally caughtup withthemand theydisappeared,
one by one,in namelesscamps.
Q. By myloose approximation,
thereremainthreenovels,some
fiftystories,and six playsstillin Russian.Are thereanyplansto
translatethese?What of The Exploit,written duringwhatseemsto
have been yourmostfecundperiodas a "Russianwriter," would
youtellus something, however about
briefly, thisbook?
A. Not all of thatstuff is as goodas I thought it was thirty
years
ago but someof it willprobably be publishedin Englishbye-and-
bye.My son is now working on the translation
of The Exploit.It
is thestoryofa Russianexpatriate, a romanticyoungmanof myset
and time,a loverof adventure foradventure'ssake,proudflaunter
ofperil,climberofunnecessary mountains,whomerely forthepure
thrillof it decidesone dayto crossillegally intoSovietRussia,and
thencrossbackto exile.Its mainthemeis theovercoming of fear,
thegloryand rapture of thatvictory.
Q. I understand
thatThe Real Lifeof SebastianKnightwas writ-
tenin Englishin 1938.It is verydramatic to thinkof youbidding
farewell to one languageand embarking on a new lifein another
in thisway.Why did youdecideto writein Englishat thistime,
sinceyou obviously could not have knownforcertainyou would
two
emigrate years later?How muchmorewriting in Russiandid
you do between SebastianKnight and youremigration to America
in 1940,and oncethere,did youevercomposein Russianagain?
A. Oh, I didknowI wouldeventually landin America.I switched
to Englishafterconvincing myself on the strengthofmytranslation
ofDespairthatI coulduse Englishas a wistful standbyforRussian.7
I stillfeelthepangsofthatsubstitution, theyhavenotbeenallayed
by the Russianpoems(mybest) that I wrote in New York,or the
1954 Russianversionof Speak,Memory,or even my recenttwo-
yearslongworkon the Russiantranslation of Lolitawhichwillbe
published some time in 1967. I wrote Sebastian Knightin Paris,
1938.We had thatyeara charming flaton rueSaigon,betweenthe
Etoileand theBois. It consisted of a hugehandsomeroom(which
servedas parlor,bedroomand nursery) witha smallkitchenon one
sideand a largesunnybathroom on the other.This apartment had
been somebachelor'sdelightbut was not meantto accommodate
7 In 1936, while livingin Berlin,Nabokov translatedDespair for the

Englishfirm,JohnLong,who publishedit in 1937. The mostrecentand final
editionofDespair(NewYork,1966)is,as Nabokov in itsForeword,
explains
a revision andofOtchayanie
ofboththeearlytranslation itself.
AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV j 149
a familyof three.Eveningguestshad to be entertained in the kitchen
so as not to interfere
withmyfuturetranslator'ssleep. And the bath-
roomdoubledas mystudy.Here is the Doppelgainger themeforyou.
Q. Many people are surprisedto learnthatyou have writtenseven

plays,whichis strange,since yournovelsare filledwith "theatrical"
effectsthat are patentlyunnovelistic.Is it just to say that yourfre-
quent allusionsto Shakespeareare more than a matterof playful
or respectfulhomage?What do you thinkof the dramaas a form?
What are the characteristicsof Shakespeare'splayswhich you find
most congenialto yourown esthetic?
A. The verbalpoetical textureof Shakespeareis the greatestthe
worldhas known,and is immenselysuperiorto the structureof his
playsas plays.With Shakespeareit is the metaphorthatis the thing,
not the play.My mostambitiousventurein the domainof dramais
a huge screenplaybased on Lolita. I wroteit forKubrickwho used
onlybits and shadowsof it forhis otherwiseexcellentfilm.
Q. When I was yourstudent,you nevermentionedthe Homeric

parallelsin discussingJoyce'sUlysses.But you did supply"special
information"in introducingmany of the masterpieces:a map of
Dublin for Ulysses,the arrangement of streetsand lodgingsin Dr.
Jekylland Mr. a
Hyde, diagram of the interiorof a railwaycoach
on the Moscow-St. Petersburgexpressin Anna Karenina,and a
floorplan of the Samsa's apartmentin The Metamorphosisand an
entomologicaldrawingof Gregor.Would you be able to suggest
some equivalentforyourown readers?
A. Joycehimselfverysoon realizedwith dismaythat the harping
on those essentiallyeasy and vulgar"Homeric parallelisms"would
only distractone's attentionfromthe real beautyof his book. He
soon dropped these pretentiouschapter titles which alreadywere
"explaining"the book to non-readers.In my lecturesI triedto give
factualdata only. A map of threecountryestateswith a winding
riverand a figureof the butterfly
Parnassiusmnemosynefora carto-
graphiccherubwill be the endpaperin myrevisededition of Speak,
Memory.
Q. Incidentally,one of mycolleaguescame into my officerecently

with the breathlessnews that Gregoris not a cockroach(he had
read an articleto thateffect).I told him I've knownthatfortwelve
years,and took out my notes to show him my drawingfromwhat
was forone day onlyEntomology312. What kind of beetle,by the
way, was Gregor?
A. It was a domed beetle, a scarabbeetle with wing-sheaths,
and
neitherGregornorhis makerrealizedthatwhenthe roomwas being
made by the maid, and the windowwas open, he could have flown
out and escaped and joined the other happy dung beetles rolling
the dung balls on ruralpaths.
Q. How are you progressing

in yournovel,The Textureof Time?
Since the donneesforsome of yournovelsseem to be present,how-
ever fleetingly,
in earliernovels, would it be fair to suggestthat
chapter fourteenof Bend Sinistercontainsthe germforyourlatest
venture?
A. In a way,yes;but my Textureof Time, now almosthalf-ready,
is only the centralrose-webof a much ampler and richernovel,
entitledAda, about passionate,hopeless,rapturoussunsetlove, with
swallowsdartingbeyondthestainedwindowand thatradiantshiver...
Q. Speakingof donnies: At the end of Pale Fire, Kinbote saysof

Shade and his poem, "I even suggestedto him a good title-the
titleof thebook in me whosepageshe was to cut: Solus Rex; instead
of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing."In 1940
SovremennyeZapiski published a long section fromyour "unfin-
ished" novel,Solus Rex, under that title. Does Pale Fire represent
the "cutting"of its pages?What is the relationship betweenit, the
other untranslatedfragmentfrom Solus Rex ("Ultima Thule,"
publishedin NovyyJournal,New York, 1942) and Pale Fire?
A. My Solus Rex might have disappointedKinbote less than
Shade's poem. The two countries,that of the Lone King and the
Zembla land, belong to the same biological zone. Their subartic
bogs have much the same butterflies and berries.A sad and distant
kingdom seems to have haunted my poetryand fictionsince the
'twenties.It is not associatedwithmypersonalpast.UnlikeNorthern
Russia,both Zembla and Ultima Thule are mountainous,and their
languagesare of a phonyScandinaviantype.If a cruelprankster kid-
napped Kinbote and in
placed him, blindfolded, the Ultima Thule
countryside, Kinbote would not know-at least not immediately-
by the sap smellsand birdcalls thathe was not back in Zembla,but
he wouldbe tolerablysurethathe was not on the banksof the Neva.
Q. This may be like askinga fatherto publiclydeclarewhich of
his childrenis mostloved,but do you have one novel towardswhich
you feelthe mostaffection,whichyou esteemoverall others?
A. The most affection,Lolita; the greatestesteem, Priglashenie
na Kazn'.8
Q. And as a closing question, sir, may I returnto Pale Fire:

where,please,are the crownjewelshidden?9
A. In the ruins,Sir, of some old barracksnear Kobaltana (q.v.);
but do not tell it to the Russians.
8 to a Beheading.
Invitation
9 One hesitatesto explaina joke,but readersunfamiliar withPale Fire
shouldbe informed thatthehidingplaceof theZemblancrownjewelsis never
revealedin the text,and the Indexentryunder"crownjewels,"to whichthe
readermustnow refer, is less thanhelpful."Kobaltana"is also in the Index.

Intervju Sa Vladimirom Nabokovim

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Intervju Sa Vladimirom Nabokovim

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An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov

Author(s): Alfred Appel, Jr. and Vladimir Nabokov

Q. For yearsbibliographers and literary didn'tknow

* This interview was conductedon September25, 27, 28, 29, 1966, at

WISCONSIN STUDIES VIII, 2

Q. The Russian writersyou have translatedand writtenabout all

Q. Many of the major Russian writers,such as Pushkin,Lermon-

Q. Who are the greatAmericanwritersyou most admire?

** [The spellingof "Dostoevski"(withan i) and "Chehov" (no k) is

Q. Would you say somethingabout the controversy

Q. Do you have any opinionsabout the Russian anti-utopiantra-

Q. Is it fairto saythatInvitation andBendSinister

Q. Speakingof ideology,you have oftenexpressedyour hostility

Q. Your contemptfor Freud's "standardizedsymbols"extendsto

Q. Could you tell us somethingabout yourworkhabitsas a writer,

132 CONTEMiPORARY LITERATURE

Q. One oftenhearsfromwriterstalk of how a charactertakeshold

Q. Pale Fire appearsto some readersto be in parta glosson Plato's

Q. Since we are mentioningphilosophyper se, I wonder if we

or reactto "the end"

1Nabokovis planning andKafka

AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV 135

Q. It may well be a failureof perception,but I've alwaysbeen

Q. Do FranklinLane's Lettersexist?I don't wish to appear like

Q. In which of yourearlyworksdo you thinkyou firstbegin to

2Researchhas failed to confirmthe existenceof this alleged "Dutch

136 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Q. Are there other writerswhose involutedeffectsyou admire?

Q. The Afterwordto Lolita is significant,

Q. You once told me aftera class at Cornell that you'd been

Q. Do youmakea cleardistinction betweensatireand parody?I

Q. Chapterten in The Real Life of SebastianKnightcontainsa

3 Since Mr. Nabokovhas opened an ErrataDepartment,the following

138 j CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Q. What is youropinionof Joyce'sparodies?Do you see anydiffer-

Q. Why, in Pale Fire, do you call parodythe "last resortof wit"?

Q. Are the compositionof Lolita and Speak, Memory,two very

4Mrs. Nabokov,whogradedherhusband'sexaminationpapers,did remem-

AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV 139

Q. Although seemsto be a vitalpartofyourwork,you

Q. C. P. Snowhas complainedaboutthe gulfbetweenthe "two

Q. In Pale Fire,Kinbotecomplainsthat"The comingof summer

Q. I recall yourhumorousremarksat Cornell about two writers

Q. As a matterof fact,Borgesdoes knowof yourexistence:he was

Q. I thoughtthatyou did allude to Carrollin Lolita throughwhat

Q. You have had wide experienceas a translatorand have made

Q. Mentionof translationbringsme to one of the Kinbotianprob-

Q. There is a parentheticalremarkin Despairabout a "vulgar,

Q. Sincethereissued editionofLaughter in theDarkis notgraced

144 1 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Q. Would you care to commenton how the Doppelgaingermotif

Q. What are your feelingsabout Dostoevski's celebrated The

Q. What are the criteriaof identitywhichhave made this theme

Q. Speakingof Doubles bringsme to Pnin,whichin myexperience

8A reference to KingsleyAmis'reviewofLolita,"She wasa Childand I

Q. In a televisioninterviewlast year,you singledout Bely's St.

Q. AlthoughI've neverseen it discussedas such, the Ableukhov

Q. Bely lived in Berlinin 1922-23. Did you knowhim there?You

AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV 147

Q. You mentioned Tolstoya momentago.Would yousay

and his earlyworkpre-

7 In 1936, while livingin Berlin,Nabokov translatedDespair for the

AN INTERVIEW WITH NABOKOV j 149