Dmitri Nabokov comments

[Michael Joseph]

This is charming, Keith. Much thanks.

Michael

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, sZ wrote:

>
> ----- 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
>
>