Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0004243, Thu, 1 Jul 1999 19:43:41 -0700

Subject
VN -- RIP (April 23, 1899 -- July 2, 1977) (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE. We have all been so busy celebrating VN's birthday, that
another crucial date almost passed by unremarked -- the anniverary of
Nabokov death--Jul 2, 1977. NABOKV-L thanks Galya Korovina for digging out
an especially memorable obituary written by Nabokov's longtime friend
William F. Buckley. We also thank Mr. Buckley for permitting NABOKV-L to
"reprint" his memorial.
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To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
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VLADIMIR NABOKOV
April 23, 1899-July 2, 1977

There was no picture on the cover of the _National Review_ issue of July
22, 1977; just brief contents of the most interesting articles, namely:

Two political prisoners write to their wardens in Moscow and in Santiago . . .
David Rowe surveys the danger spots in the Far East . . .

>From Johannes Eff: Vladimir Nabokov interviews Madame Butterfly
("Poor Butterfly, come into my net;
you are the handsomest and most exotic of lepidoptera yet ).

Vladimir Nabokov did not live to see this cover. This issue of _National
Review_ contains a very sad last-minute addition: VN's obituary that was
written by Editor-in-Chief William F. Buckley, Jr., VN's personal friend.

Mr. Buckley (who played Edmund Wilson in "Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya")
graciously gave me his permission to post on NABOKV-L VN's obituary and
the poem, and to translate the obituary into Russian for the Russian press.

Galya Korovina
gorod New York
Gkorovina@aol.com


V.N. -- R.I.P

The cover of this magazine had gone to press when word came in that Vladimir
Nabokov was dead. I am sorry -- not for the impiety; sorry that VN will not
see the cover, or read the verse, which he would have enjoyed. He'd have
seen this issue days ahead of most Americans, because he received NATIONAL
REVIEW by airmail, and had done so for several years. And when we would
meet, which was every year, for lunch or dinner, he never failed to express
pleasure with the magazine. In February, when I last saw him, he came down
in the elevator, big, hunched, with his cane, carefully observed by Vera,
white-haired, with the ivory skin and delicate features and beautiful face.
VN was carrying a book, which he tendered me with some embarrassment --
because it was inscribed. In one of his books, a collection of interviews
and random fare, given over not unsubstantially to the celebration of his
favorite crotchets, he said that one of the things he NEVER did was inscribe
books.
Last year, called back unexpectedly to New York, I missed our annual
reunion. Since then I had sent him my two most recent books, and about these
he now expressed hospitable enthusiasm as we sat down at his table in the
corner of the elegant dining room of the most adamantly unchanged hotel in
Europe: I cannot imagine, for all its recent architectural modernization,
that the Montreux-Palace was any different before the Russian Revolution.
He had been very ill, he said, and was saved by the dogged
intervention of his son, Dmitri, who at the hospital ordered ministrations
the poor doctors had not thought of -- isn't it right, Vera? Almost right
-- Vera is a stickler for precision. But he was writing again, back to the old
schedule. What was that schedule? (I knew, but knew he liked to tell it.)
Up in the morning about six, read the papers and a few journals, then cook
breakfast for Vera in the warren of little rooms where they had lived for 17
years. After that he would begin writing, and would write all morning long,
usually standing, on the cards he had specially cut to a size that suited him
(he wrote on both sides, and collated them finally into books). Then a light
lunch, then a walk, then a nap, and, in nimbler days, a little
butterfly-chasing or tennis, then back to his writing until dinner time.
Seven hours of writing, and he would produce 175 words. [What words!] Then
dinner, and book-reading, perhaps a game of Scrabble in Russian. A very dull
life, he said chortling with pleasure, and then asking questions about
America, deploring the infelicitous Russian prose of Solzhenitsyn, assuring
me that I was wrong in saying he had attended the inaugural meeting of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom -- he had never attended ANY organizational
meeting of anything -- isn't that right, Vera? This time she nods her
head and tells him to get on with the business of ordering from the menu. He
describes with a fluent synoptic virtuosity the literary scene, the political
scene, inflation, bad French, cupiditous publishers, the exciting
breakthrough in his son's operatic career, and what am I working on now?
A novel, and you're in it.
What was that?
You and Vera are in it. You have a daughter, and she becomes a
communist agent.
He is more amused by this than Vera, but not all THAT amused. Of
course, I'll send it to you, I beam. He laughs -- much of the time he is
laughing. How long will it take you to drive to the airport in Geneva?
My taxi driver told me it takes "un petit heure."
UNE PETITE HEURE [he is the professor]: that means fifty minutes.
We shall have to eat quickly. He reminisces about his declination of my
bid to go on FIRING LINE. It would have taken me TWO WEEKS of
preparation, he says almost proudly, reminding me of his well-known rule
against improvising. Every word he ever spoke before an audience had been
written out and memorized, he assured me -- isn't that right, Vera? Well
no, he would answer questions in class extemporaneously. Well OBVIOUSLY!
He laughed. He could hardly program his students to ask questions to
which he had the answers prepared! I demur: his extemporaneous style is
fine, just fine; ah, he says, but before an audience, or before one of
those . . . television . . . cameras, he would freeze. He ordered a
brandy, and in a few minutes we rose, and he and Vera and I walked ever so
slowly to the door. "As long as Western civilization survives,"
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the TIMES last Tuesday, "his reputation
is safe. Indeed, he will probably emerge as one of the greatest artists
our century has produced." I said goodbye warmly, embracing Vera, taking
his hand, knowing that probably I would never see again -- never mind the
artist -- this wonderful human being. -- WFB