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."
.................................................................................
* - 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