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Dmitri Nabokov on "Wingstroke"
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Email to Nab-L, this Word original created 6 January 2004
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Reply to Brian Howell, Dane Gill et al.
Recto-verso: VN meant a small fold of a flimsy frock, not necessarily a plait, that can lodge in the cleft of a nymphet's cheeks, particularly in warm, sticky circumstances. If you compare such buttocks to a good peach, you will instantly perceive the similarity.
A few words about "Wingstroke." It is one of my favorites, too, because of its original tone and that homey peek into the supernatural. My dear friend Brian Boyd dismisses the piece curtly and a bit sarcastically, perhaps because he was in a hurry; or perhaps it is I who have a special feel for the story. It was not a co-translation, since Father had died more than a decade before I undertook it, but perhaps my silent dialogue with his ever-present shade gave me some insights denied to many other sensitive readers. I am glad to learn, however, that I am not alone in my predilection.
"Wingstroke" was written in October, 1923. Other details -- including the facts that, uncharateristically, it is set in Zermatt but refracts a visit, in 1921, to St, Moritz; and that Nabokov wrote to his mother about a second part to the story, possibly published but never found -- are available in my notes in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (Knopf, 1995), where the story was collected after its first appearance in English in the Yale Review in April, 1992, as "Wingbeat."
VN made no secret of changes in the Englished versions of his works (besides Laughter in the Dark, see, among numerous other examples, King, Queen, Knave and "Solus Rex"; it is true that Laughter was most extensively rewritten and was a way-station on his passage to becoming a writer in English). But why on earth should this be the object of "accusation?" Meticulously literal as he was in translating Pushkin, Nabokov did not consider it a misdeed to perfect his own work In fact he generally considered the English versions of his stories definitive (but not, for example, The Gift). Please don't ask me to explain now how I believe one should deal with such variables when translating a polyglot author into further languages, or, as is the case at present, Solomonically resolve the issue of concurrent film offers for the same work from Moscow and LA. That has all been the subject of much debate, and would require many bytes.
A final note for those interested in the Stories volume: The last marvelous page of The Assistant Producer, restored here, had been inadvertently left out of all previous editions except the first. And, by a kind of sinister symmetry, the first run of Stories lacked the final mini-chapter of The Potato Elf, an omission quickly corrected.
Happy New Year to all.
DN