In the foreword to The Defense you allude to psychiatry. Do you think the dependence of analyzed on analysts is a great danger?
I cannot conceive постигать how anybody in his right mind should go to a psychoanalyst, but of course if one's mind is deranged one might try anything; after all, quacks and cranks, shamans and holy men, kings and hypnotists have cured people — especially hysterical people. Our grandsons no doubt will regard today's psychoanalysts with the same amused contempt as we do astrology and phrenology. One of the greatest pieces of charlatanic, and satanic, nonsense imposed on a gullible public is the Freudian interpretation of dreams. I take gleeful pleasure every morning in refuting the Viennese quack by recalling and explaining the details of my dreams without using one single reference to sexual symbols or mythical complexes. 1 urge my potential patients to do likewise.
How do your views on politics and religion affect what you write?
I have never belonged to any political party but have always loathed and despised dictatorships and police states, as well as any sort of oppression. This goes for regimentation of thought, governmental censorship, racial or religious persecution, and all the rest of it. Whether or not my simple credo affects my writing docs not interest me. I suppose that my indifference to religion is of the same nature as my dislike of group activities in the domain of political or civic commitments. I have allowed some of my creatures in some of my novels to be restless freethinkers but here again I do not care one bit what kind of faith or brand of non-faith my reader may assign to their maker.
Would you have liked to have lived at a time other than this?
My choice of «when» would be influenced by that of «where». As a matter ot tact, 1 would have to construct a mosaic of time and space to suit my desires and demands. It would be too complicated to tabulate all the elements of this combination. But I know pretty well what it should include. It should include a warm climate, daily baths, an absence of radio music and traffic noise, the honey ot ancient Persia, a complete microfilm library, and the unique and indescribable rapture of learning more and more about the moon and the planets. In other words, I think I would like my head to be in the United States of the nineteen-sixties, but would not mind distributing some of my other organs and limbs through various centuries and countries.
With what living writers do you feel a particular sympathy?
When Mr. N. learns from an interview that Mr. X., another writer, has named as his favorites Mr. A., Mr. B. and Mr. N., this inclusion may puzzle Mr. N. who considers, say, Mr. A-s work to be primitive and trite. 1 would not like to puzzle Mr. C, Mr. D., or Mr. X., all of whom I like.
Do you anticipate that more of your works will be made into films? On the basis of Lolita, does the prospect please you?
I greatly admired the film Lolita as a film — but was sorry not to have been given an opportunity to collaborate in its actual making. People who liked my novel said the film was too reticent and incomplete. If, however, all the next pictures based on my books are as charming as Kubrick's, I shall not grumble too much.
Which of the languages you speak do you consider the most beautiful?
My head says English, my heart, Russian, my ear, French.
Why do you prefer Montreux as a headquarters? Do you in any way miss the America you parodied so exquisitely in Lolita? Do you find that Europe and the US are coming to resemble each other to a discouraging degree?
I think I am trying to develop, in this rosy exile, the same fertile nostalgia in regard to America, my new country, as I evolved for Russia, my old one, in the first postrevolution years of WestEuropean expatriation. Of course, I miss America — even Miss America. If Europe and America are coming to resemble each other more and more — why should I be discouraged? Amusing, perhaps, and, perhaps, not quite true, but certainly not discouraging in any sense I can think of. My wife and I are very fond of Montreux, the scenery of which I needed for Pale Fire, and still need for another hook. There are also family reasons for our living in this part of Europe. I have a sister in Geneva and a son in Milan. He is a graduate of Harvard who came to Italy to complete his operatic training, which he combines with racing an Italian car in major events and translating the early works of his father from Russian into English.
What is your prognosis for the health of Russian letters?
There is no plain answer to your question. The trouble is that no government however intelligent or humane is capable of generating great artists, although a bad government certainly can pester, thwart, and suppress them. We must also remember — and this is very important — that the only people who flourish under all types of government are the Philistines. In the aura of mild regimes there is exactly as rare a chance of a great artist's appearing on the scene as there is in the less happy times of despicable dictatorships. Therefore I cannot predict anything though I certainly hope that under the influence of the West, and especially under that of America, the Soviet police state will gradually wither away. Incidentally, I deplore the attitude of foolish or dishonest people who ridiculously equate Stalin with McCarthy, Auschwitz with the atom bomb, and the ruthless imperialism of the USSR with the earnest and unselfish assistance extended by the USA to nations in distress.
P.S.
Dear Miss Howard, allow me to add the following three points:
1) My answers must be published accurately and completely: verbatim, if quoted; in a faithful version, if not.
2) I must see the proofs of the interview — semifinal and final.
3) I have the right to correct therein all factual errors and specific slips («Mr. Nabokov is a small man with long hair», etc.)
5
In September, 1965, Robert Hughes visited me here to make a filmed interview for the Television 13 Educational Program in New York. At our initial meetings I read from prepared cards, and this part of the interview is given below. The rest, represented by some fifty pages typed from the tape, is too colloquial and rambling to suit the scheme of the present book.
As with Gogol and even James Agee, there is occasionally confusion about the pronunciation of your last name. How does one pronounce it correctly?
It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the «a» of the first syllable as a misprint and then tries to restore the symmetrical sequence by triplicating the «o» — filling up the row of circles, so to speak, as in a game of crosses and naughts. Nobowcough. How ugly, how wrong. Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals develops a birdwatcher's or caterpillarpicker's knack when scanning an article. But in my case I always get caught by the word ''nobody» when capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokcoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle, as Russians also do. Na-bo-kov. A heavy open ''o» as in «Knickerbocker». My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle uo» of Nabokov as delivered in American academies. The awful «Nabahkov» is a despicable gutterism. Well, you can make your choice now. Incidentally, the first name is pronounced Vladeemer — rhyming with «redeemer» — not Vladimir rhyming with Faddimere (a place in England, I think).