Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov by Robert Golla (ed)

Author:Robert Golla (ed) [Golla, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781496810953
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2017-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov

Alfred Appel Jr. / 1967

From Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 8.2 (1967): 127–153 © 1967 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reproduced by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.

Alfred Appel Jr.: For years bibliographers and literary journalists didn’t know whether to group you under “Russian” or “American.” Now that you’re living in Switzerland there seems to be complete agreement that you’re American. Do you find this kind of distinction at all important regarding your identity as a writer?

Vladimir Nabokov: I have always maintained, even as a schoolboy in Russia, that the nationality of a worthwhile writer is of secondary importance. The more distinctive an insect’s aspect, the less apt is the taxonomist to glance first of all at the locality label under the pinned specimen in order to decide which of several vaguely described races it should be assigned to. The writer’s art is his real passport. His identity should be immediately recognized by a special pattern or unique coloration. His habitat may confirm the correctness of the determination but should not lead to it. Locality labels are known to have been faked by unscrupulous insect dealers. Apart from these considerations, I think of myself today as an American writer who has once been a Russian one.

AA: The Russian writers you have translated and written about all precede the so-called “age of realism,” which is more celebrated by English and American readers than is the earlier period. Would you say something about your temperamental or artistic affinities with the great writers of the 1830–40 era of masterpieces? Do you see your own work falling under such general rubrics as a tradition of Russian humor?

VN: The question of the affinities I may think I have or not have with nineteenth century Russian writers is a classificational, not a confessional matter. There is hardly a single Russian major writer of the past whom pigeonholers have not mentioned in connection with me. Pushkin’s blood runs through the veins of modern Russian literature as inevitably as Shakespeare’s through those of English literature.

AA: Many of the major Russian writers, such as Pushkin, Lermontov, and Bely, have distinguished themselves in both poetry and prose, an uncommon accomplishment in English and American literature. Does this signal fact have anything to do with the special nature of Russian literary culture, or are there technical or linguistic resources which make this kind of versatility more possible in Russian? And as a writer of both prose and poetry, what distinctions do you make between them?

VN: On the other hand, neither Gogol nor Tolstoy nor Chekhov were distinguished versificators. Moreover, the dividing line between prose and poetry in some of the greatest English or American novels is not easy to draw. I suppose you should have used the term “rhymed poetry” in your question, and then one might answer that Russian rhymes are incomparably more attractive and more abundant than English ones. No wonder a Russian prose writer frequents those beauties, especially in his youth.

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