It was a domed beetle, a scarab beetle with wingsheaths, and neither Gregor nor his maker realized that when the room was being made by the maid, and the window was open, he could have flown out and escaped and joined the other happy dung beetles rolling the dung balls on rural paths.
How are you progressing in your novel, The Texture of Time? Since the donnees for some of your novels seem to be present, however fleetingly, in earlier novels, would it be fair to suggest that Chapter Fourteen of Bend Sinister contains the germ for your latest venture?
In a way, yes; but my Texture of Time, now almost half-ready, is only the central roseweb of a much ampler and richer novel, entitled Ada, about passionate, hopeless, rapturous sunset love, with swallows darting beyond the stained window and that radiant shiver . . .
Speaking of données: At the end of Pale Fire, Kinbote says of Shade and his poem, «I even suggested to him a good title — the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex; instead of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing». In 1940 Sovremennye Zapiski published a long section from your '«unfinished» novel, Solus Rex, under that title. Does Pale Fire represent the «cutting» of its pages? What is the relationship between it, the other untranslated fragment from Solus Rex («Ultima Thule», published in Novyy Journal, New York, 1942) and Pale Fire?
My Solus Rex might have disappointed Kinbote less than Shade's poem. The two countries, that of the Lone King and the Zembla land, belong to the same biological zone. Their subarctic bogs have much the same butterflies and berries. A sad and distant kingdom seems to have haunted my poetry and fiction since the twenties. It is not associated with my personal past. Unlike Northern Russia, both Zembla and Ultima Thule are mountainous, and their languages are of a phony Scandinavian type. If a cruel prankster kidnapped Kinbote and placed him, blindfolded, in the Ultima Thule countryside, Kinbote would not know — at least not immediately — by the sap smells and bird calls that he was not back in Zembla, but he would be tolerably sure that he was not on the banks of the Neva.
This may be like asking a father to publicly declare which of his children is most loved, but do you have one novel towards which you feel the most affection, which you esteem over all others?
The most affection, Lolita; the greatest esteem, Priglashenie na Kazn'. 7*
And as a closing question, sir, may I return to Pale Fire: where, please, are the crown jewels bidden? 8*
In the ruins, sir, of some old barracks near Kobaltana (q.v.); but do not tell it to the Russians.
7* Invitation to a Beheading
8* One hesitates to explain a joke, but readers unfamiliar with Pale Fire should be informed that the hiding place of the Zemblan crown jewels is never revealed in the text, and the Index entry under «crown jewels», to which the reader must now refer, is less than helpful. «Kobaltana» is also in the Index.
7
Most of the questions were submitted by Herbert Gold, during a visit to Montreux in September, 1966. The rest (asterisked) were mailed to me by George A. Plimpton. The combined set appeared in 1 he Paris Review oi October, 1967.
Good morning. Let me ask forty-odd questions.
Good morning. I am ready.
Your sense of the immorality of the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita is very strong. In Hollywood and New York, however, relationships are frequent between men of forty and girls very little older than Lolita. They marry — to no particular public outrage; rather, public cooing.
No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert HumbertLolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give a damn for public morals, in America or elsewhere. And, anyway, cases of men in their forties marrying girls in their teens or early twenties have no bearing on Lolita whatever. Humbert was fond of «little girls» — not simply «young girls». Nymphets are girl-children, not starlets and «sex kittens». Lolita was twelve, not eighteen, when Humbert met her. You may remember that by the time she is fourteen, he refers to her as his «aging mistress».
One critic has said about you that «his feelings are like no one else's». Does this make sense to you? Or does it mean that you know your feelings better than others know theirs? Or that you have discovered yourself at other levels? Or simply that your history is unique?
I do not recall that article; but if a critic makes such a statement, it must surely mean that he has explored the feelings of literally millions of people, in at least three countries, before reaching his conclusion. If so, I am a rare fowl indeed. If, on the other hand, he has merely limited himself to quizzing members of his family or club, his statement cannot he discussed seriously.
Another critic has written that your «worlds are static. They may become tense with obsession, but they do not break apart like the worlds of everyday reality. « Do you agree? Is there a static quality in your view of things?
Whose «reality»? «Everyday» where? Let me suggest that the very term «everyday reality» is utterly static since it presupposes a situation that is permanently observable, essentially objective, and universally known. I suspect you have invented that expert on «everyday reality». Neither exists.
He does (names him). A third critic has said that you «diminish» your characters «to the point where they become ciphers in a cosmic farce». I disagree; Humbert, while comic, retains a touching and insistent quality — that of the spoiled artist.
I would put it differently: Humbert Humbert is a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear «touching». That epithet, in its true, teariridized sense, can only apply to my poor little girl. Besides, how can I «diminish» to the level of ciphers, et cetera, characters that I have invented myself? One can «diminish» a biographee, but not an eidolon,
**E. M. Forster speaks of his major characters sometimes taking over and dictating the course of his novels. Has this ever been a problem for you, or are you in complete command?
My knowledge of Mr. Forster's works is limited to one novel which I dislike; and anyway it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand; it is as old as the quills, although of course one sympathizes with his people if they try to wriggle out of that trip to India or whereever he takes them. My characters are galley slaves.
**Clarence Brown of Princeton has pointed out striking similarities in your work. He refers to you as «extremely repetitious» and that in wildly different ways you are in essence saying the same thing. He speaks of fate being the «muse of Nabokov». Are you consciously aware of «repeating yourself, «or to put it another way, that you strive for a conscious unity to your shelf of books?
I do not think I have seen Clarence Brown's essay, but he may have something there. Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own self to copy.
**Do you think literary criticism is at all purposeful? Either in general, or specifically about your own books? Is it ever instructive?
The purpose of a critique is to say something about a book the critic has or has not read. Criticism can be instructive in the sense that it gives readers, including the author of the book, some information about the critic's intelligence, or honesty, or both.