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[NABOKOV-L] Facts and Fiction ?
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In a review of Stacy Shiff's biography "Véra (mrs Vladimir Nabokov)" I read that "Schiff skillfully presents Vera Nabokov as a living paradox. To some, she was uptight, self-righteous, and snooty, to others, charming and friendly. She forbade her son to read Mark Twain for moral reasons, but unhesitatingly endorsed Lolita.* Purposefully skirting the limelight, she was at her husband's side at all interviews and receptions. Throughout two decades spent in the United States, Vera never stopped ridiculing American provincialism and lack of taste..." www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/...retail.../4757119-1.html
What I can remember is that Vera Nabokov wondered if Harriet B.Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a book she could let young Dmitri read**. Should the reviewer's information about Twain be correct then, perhaps, Véra was even stricter towards what her little son should read than I thought.
I equally couldn't locate any particular reference by Nabokov to Mark Twain, although VN didn't spare his criticism towards his admired author, Lewis Carroll who, like Mark Twain in his old age, had a particular fondness for duly chaperoned little girls: "I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert. Have you seen those photographs of him with little girls? He would make arrangements with aunts and mothers to take the children out. He was never caught, except by one girl who wrote about him when she was much older." -- V.V. Nabokov, interview, Dec. 1966 Vogue.
Brian Boyd mentions Mark Twain only once in "Vladimir Nabokov - The American Years: "...and as he crossed the Mississipi, Nabokov recalled not Mark Twain but Chateaubriand's verdant America." [Index entry as Clemens, Samuel Langhorn (pseud. Mart Twain), 28.]
Perhaps someone can clarify why Nabokov (apparently) avoided to mention Mark Twain or what's the meaning of Vera's prohibition of Twain on "moral reasons" (if true).
Alexey Sklyarenko writes about links between Nabokov's "Ada, or Ardor" and Russian novels. I would like to suggest an American connection, too: "As I said earlier (responding to the query put forward by Marie Bouchet), the name Lucette (or Lucy, or Lucinda) does not exist in Russian. However, several froms of this name do occur in Russian literature...In A. N. Tolstoy's story Drevniy put' ("The Ancient Way," 1927), Lucie is a cousin and bride of the hero, a French officer...Among Paul Taurin's fellow travellers are Russian refugees...Btw., taurin means in French "of bull" (cf. Daniel Veen's mother was a Trumbell, and he was prone to explain at great length - unless side-tracked by a bore-baiter - how in the course of American history an English 'bull' had become a New England 'bell': 1.1; Daniel Veen is Lucette's father). Nabokov not only playfylly sbstituted "bulls and bells" (or belles) in "Ada, or Ardor", but also when he mocked Hemingway's novels: "I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it."
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* - Mark Twain's mansion in Redding, Connecticut, was originally named "Innocents at Home" and later it became "Stormfield" ..."a more appropriate name as the book, Captain Stormfield, had supplied the funds for the building of the house" ( historyofredding.net/stormfield-photos.htm ) Cf. also Mark Twain's Aquarium: The Samuel Clemens Angelfish Correspondence, 1905-1910, Mark Twain: Samuel Clemens & John Cooley (Editor). excerpt from editorial review: Having lost his wife ...Twain recruited 12 girls between ages ten and 16 to act as surrogate granddaughters in his lonely, depression-ridden last years. Bright and, above all, innocent, these "angelfish"--members of the Aquarium Club--were welcome guests at Twain's New York apartment and later at Stormfield, the club's headquarters, always properly chaperoned. The aging writer may seem pathetic, but the wealth of letters collected here are dotted with charm and wit and represent a genuine contribution to Twain scholarship."
** - Rather than "a book that made history," Uncle Tom's Cabin is a novel that matters because it is still provokes argument. Many modern readers wish Uncle Tom would stop praying and serving and do something. W.E.B. DuBois saw Tom's "deep religious fatalism" as an example of the stunted ethical growth endemic to plantation existence, where "habits of shiftlessness took root, and sullen hopelessness replaced hopeful strife." In Nabokov's Lolita, the porter who carries the bags to the hotel room where Humbert Humbert will first have his way with his young stepdaughter is called "Uncle Tom." He will not get involved. Unfounded as the term and the application may be, "Uncle Tom" remains, even today, the standard epithet for any black man who serves whites ..."www.gilderlehrman.org/.../historian2.php - Estados Unidos
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What I can remember is that Vera Nabokov wondered if Harriet B.Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a book she could let young Dmitri read**. Should the reviewer's information about Twain be correct then, perhaps, Véra was even stricter towards what her little son should read than I thought.
I equally couldn't locate any particular reference by Nabokov to Mark Twain, although VN didn't spare his criticism towards his admired author, Lewis Carroll who, like Mark Twain in his old age, had a particular fondness for duly chaperoned little girls: "I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert. Have you seen those photographs of him with little girls? He would make arrangements with aunts and mothers to take the children out. He was never caught, except by one girl who wrote about him when she was much older." -- V.V. Nabokov, interview, Dec. 1966 Vogue.
Brian Boyd mentions Mark Twain only once in "Vladimir Nabokov - The American Years: "...and as he crossed the Mississipi, Nabokov recalled not Mark Twain but Chateaubriand's verdant America." [Index entry as Clemens, Samuel Langhorn (pseud. Mart Twain), 28.]
Perhaps someone can clarify why Nabokov (apparently) avoided to mention Mark Twain or what's the meaning of Vera's prohibition of Twain on "moral reasons" (if true).
Alexey Sklyarenko writes about links between Nabokov's "Ada, or Ardor" and Russian novels. I would like to suggest an American connection, too: "As I said earlier (responding to the query put forward by Marie Bouchet), the name Lucette (or Lucy, or Lucinda) does not exist in Russian. However, several froms of this name do occur in Russian literature...In A. N. Tolstoy's story Drevniy put' ("The Ancient Way," 1927), Lucie is a cousin and bride of the hero, a French officer...Among Paul Taurin's fellow travellers are Russian refugees...Btw., taurin means in French "of bull" (cf. Daniel Veen's mother was a Trumbell, and he was prone to explain at great length - unless side-tracked by a bore-baiter - how in the course of American history an English 'bull' had become a New England 'bell': 1.1; Daniel Veen is Lucette's father). Nabokov not only playfylly sbstituted "bulls and bells" (or belles) in "Ada, or Ardor", but also when he mocked Hemingway's novels: "I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it."
.................................................................................
* - Mark Twain's mansion in Redding, Connecticut, was originally named "Innocents at Home" and later it became "Stormfield" ..."a more appropriate name as the book, Captain Stormfield, had supplied the funds for the building of the house" ( historyofredding.net/stormfield-photos.htm ) Cf. also Mark Twain's Aquarium: The Samuel Clemens Angelfish Correspondence, 1905-1910, Mark Twain: Samuel Clemens & John Cooley (Editor). excerpt from editorial review: Having lost his wife ...Twain recruited 12 girls between ages ten and 16 to act as surrogate granddaughters in his lonely, depression-ridden last years. Bright and, above all, innocent, these "angelfish"--members of the Aquarium Club--were welcome guests at Twain's New York apartment and later at Stormfield, the club's headquarters, always properly chaperoned. The aging writer may seem pathetic, but the wealth of letters collected here are dotted with charm and wit and represent a genuine contribution to Twain scholarship."
** - Rather than "a book that made history," Uncle Tom's Cabin is a novel that matters because it is still provokes argument. Many modern readers wish Uncle Tom would stop praying and serving and do something. W.E.B. DuBois saw Tom's "deep religious fatalism" as an example of the stunted ethical growth endemic to plantation existence, where "habits of shiftlessness took root, and sullen hopelessness replaced hopeful strife." In Nabokov's Lolita, the porter who carries the bags to the hotel room where Humbert Humbert will first have his way with his young stepdaughter is called "Uncle Tom." He will not get involved. Unfounded as the term and the application may be, "Uncle Tom" remains, even today, the standard epithet for any black man who serves whites ..."www.gilderlehrman.org/.../historian2.php - Estados Unidos
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/