Subject: Re: Nabokov in SCIENCE magazine; Nabokov at Harvard & NPR
From: "Kurt Johnson" <[email-masked]>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 15:33:05 -0700

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Two orders of business:
   1.  the two Nabokov butterfly books were reviewed in SCIENCE (Oct. 6),
which, along with NATURE are the two most prestigious magazines for
professional scientists of all persuasions.  It was a two-age/ 3 column each
plus two color photos review).   A couple comments on these below
(electronic copy at least not available from me).

   2.   Bob Pyle, Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates speak at the Harvard Museum
of Natural History on Tues. night Oct. 24th at 6 PM.   I think the
particulars of this event were announced earlier; unfortunately, with bag in
had right now, I do not have them with me.   But, the Harvard Museum etc.
should not be difficult to locate/telephone etc.  if you are in the area.
They will be introduced by Nabokov's old friend Dr. Charles Remington,
emeritus professor of genetics at Yale and contributor to The Garland
Companion for Nabokov.   The presentation is part of a fall/winter series on
butterflies and Harvard history etc. and followed by a reception in the
event exhibit area.

   3.   The next day, Kurt Johnson and Brian Boyd (by phone) will be
interviewed on Oct. 25th, on National Public Radio's "The Connection" which,
at least out of Boston runs at 11 a.m E.D.T. and, I think, is often
rebroadcast in the evening in various places as well.   Bob Pyle will be on
a plane at this time and not available.

Now, a couple quotations from SCIENCE's review "Blue Book Value", Science
Vol. 290, Oct. 6, 2000, pp. 57-58.

Re Nabokov's Butterflies Berenbaum says "present[s] a dazzling span of work
[then a thumbnail of the contents].   The editors also offer chapters on
Nabokov written to their own strengths; Boyd recounts Nabokov's life, and
Pyle details his entomological contributions.   Berenbaum summarizes later
"[Nabokov] is the best writer about insects of the 20th century, and
possibly evere.  As Pyle so aptly says, Nabokov is simply the "foremost
literary interpreter of butterflies and moths."  This is no small
accomplishment."

Of Nabokov's Blues, Berenbaum says "Johnson and Coates do an outstanding job
of laying out the importance of alpha-taxonomy (the classification and
description of species), and it seems safe to say that never before has this
desperately underfinanced and utterly essential subdiscipline of biology
been so engagingly depicted.  Their conservation message, tied to taxonomy
(or what is now called "biodiversity inventory") is also eloquent and
compelling."

However, if there is any negative it is that Berenbaum seems, as do many, to
take the conclusions of both books as "givens" and, without a sense of the
historical flow of the books' storylines considers both "too strident" in
trying to defend Nabokov's science.  For instance, she takes Nabokov to task
for criticizing natural selection with regard to mimicry-- forgetting, as
both books make clear, that populations genetics (the key to understanding
mimicry in the light of natural selection) HAD NOT YET BEEN elucidated
during Nabokov's active years as a publishing entomologist.  She also
complains that Nabokov must have already been recognized as a significant
lepidopterist early on [thus, not needing "rehabilitation"] because, before
1950, he had three species named after him.  Again, she forgets that those
three species patronyms emanated from friends or taxonomic colleagues while,
meantime, well into the 1990's virtually NONE of Nabokov's classifications
for blues were being used or accepted anywhere.  Its hard to see how
reviewers miss these major points, but they seem to.

But these were minor things compared to the important of attention to
Nabokov is a venue as important as SCIENCE.

Kurt Johnson

The reviewer,  May Berenbaum of the Univ. of Illinois was quite positive
about both books, although felt they perhaps tried "too hard" to "stump" for
Nabokov the scientist