In an EDNote last week I referred vaguely to an interview in which
Nabokov demonstrated an openness to patterns and other artistic
elements that he (or for that matter any artist) did not consciously
plan and build into a work. It turns out not to have been an
interview, but a letter to Carl Proffer about his Keys to Lolita.
Here is the text:
“Many of the
delightful combinations and clues,
though quite acceptable, never entered my head or are the result of an
author’s
intuition and inspiration, not calculation and craft. Otherwise
why bother at all—in your case as
well as mine.” (Sept. 26, 1966; Selected Letters, 391. An
editorial DN footnote adds: "Last sentence added in holograph.")
Stephen Blackwell