Dmitri Nabokov comments

[sZ]

----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel at cox.net>
To: <NABOKV-L at LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 7:36 PM
Subject: Fw: Dmitri Nabokov comments on recent NABOKV-L postings


Message
----- Original Message -----
From: Dmitri
To: D. Barton Johnson
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 3:29 PM
Subject: finis


Dear Friends,

As I prepare to emerge from the hospital after a couple of operations, I
dictate this letter by phone. If there are any typos this time my secretary
will be deprived of her afternoon cookie for a week. My own sin was having
possibly misconstrued the erudite Mr. Morris's use of the expression
"nothing if not a linguistic showoff." After quite a few decades of US
citizenship and some lecturing at US universities, young Master Nabokov does
happen to know the American vernacular nuance of this locution, something on
the order of "if you strip Nabokov of all his medals, he will still be a
linguistic showoff."

I am happy to accept Jansy Etcetera's epithets, since "a gauche white
knight" sounds like a rare species indeed. But JE's sense of proportion is a
little off.  A check of the file will reveal that I have devoted a good bit
more time and printer ink to answering questions and providing interesting
tidbits and graphics than charging at windmills in my father's defense.
Whether or not I defend him, or someone attempts to demean him, I doubt that
his status in the literary macrocosm will change much. I think it was the
kind and perceptive Tim Strzechowski who observed that I do know interesting
things about my parents that others may not know. But contrary to what Jansy
Etcetera somewhat bombastically suggests, I have never taken myself as the
highest scholarly authority on VN (if that is JE's meaning). There are some
outstanding specialists: Johnson, Dolinin, Nicol, Parker, to name a few, and
especially Brian Boyd. In fact, the latter's stunning expertise on ADA,
which has continued to develop ever since he came to see my mother and me in
 Montreux on the wings of his doctoral thesis -- a visit that led to the
writing of the only Nabokov biography worthy of the name -- now prompts me
to extend to him a public invitation: to write an introduction, and perhaps
provide his existing notes, for a new Russian translation of ADA, the first,
perhaps, to be worthy of its name. An exceptional introduction is sorely
needed to counterbalance certain Russian hacks, the worst of whom, not long
ago, goofed again while introducing a barely recognizable ADA. Yes, I mean
the same worthy gentleman who claimed, in a recent, unposted literary
harangue, that the report of my death in some Russian gazette voided any
claim against a major Nabokov piracy of his.

I am glad that the boobstorm has abated; that interesting discussions of
Pynchon and Nabokov have resumed on  the P-List; that an absorbing ADA
dialogue between Don and Brian, set off partly by the Showoff Shenanigans,
continues to delight and enlighten us on the N-List; and that I have ceased
to be the target of an arsenal -- or half-arsenal -- of infantile invective.

With my best wishes to all,

DN