Tag archives for People
Skirmantas Valiulis (Biography)
Skirmantas Valiulis was born in 1938. S. Valiulis is an art critic of photography, television and cinema, he lecturers at department of Journalism at Vilnius University (VU) as well as…
Reading Nabokov, James, Austen, Fitzgerald
Azar Nafisi's memoir once again demonstrates the power of ideas in literature in an oppressive regime (think "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seanstress"). Nafisi is a western educated professor of…
American Stories
In sheer volume, Nabokov's American stories were dwarfed by his Russian output. Between the completion of his first novel in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, in 1939, and…
Nabokov carried tradition of gentleman naturalist into mid-century
Although writer Vladimir Nabokov often used a hand lens for his taxonomic study of butterflies, historian Daniel Alexandrov may be the first to treat Nabokov himself as a "lens," specifically…
Lolita. Paris, 1955
In 1953, having nearly completed this "enormous, mysterious, heartbreaking novel" after "five years of monstrous misgivings and diabolical labors," Nabokov declared that it "has had no precedent in literature." He…
The New Yorker
Nabokov's first contribution to The New Yorker was "Literary Dinner," a poem that appeared on April 11, 1942. It was followed in June by a poem, "The Refrigerator Awakes," composed…
The Cinematography of Nabokov
Developments in technology frequently have profound effects upon literature, and not merely in the sense that technological hardware appears in fictional works. Even the structure and style of literary work…
Early Life and Poems
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, into the "great classless intelligentsia" of old St. Petersburg. His father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (V. D. Nabokov), a titled aristocrat, was…
Conclusive Evidence. New York, 1951
Speak, Memory. New York, 1967 In 1946, Nabokov wrote to Doubleday that he was planning "a new kind of autobiography, or rather a new hybrid between that and a novel."…
Nabokov as Translator
An examination of his changing doctrine of translation Because human beings speak many thousands of mutually unintelligible languages, translation of materials from the languages in which they were originally written…
Crimea and Cambridge
Fearing that his two oldest sons - Vladimir, age eighteen, and Sergei, seventeen - would be drafted into the Red Army, V. D. Nabokov sent them from St. Petersburg to…
Lepidopterological Papers, 1941-53
"From the age of seven, everything I felt in connection with a rectangle of framed sunlight was dominated by a single passion," Nabokov wrote in Speak, Memory. Butterfly collecting was…
how to read nabokov & not go nuts
Before heading into Pnin and Ada and beyond, I just thought I'd share what I've learned about the actual mechanics of reading Nabokov, which isn't at all tricky or particularly…
Berlin and Early Translations
In August 1920, the Nabokov family moved to Berlin, where Vladimir would compose all eight of his Russian novels. London had proved much too expensive, and the Berlin economy was…
Lectures on Russian Literature
Nabokov had secured his May 1940 exit from Paris with the promise of a summer stint teaching creative writing - primarily drama - and Russian literature the following year at…
Vladimir Nabokov by Wilma Slaight
Nabokov was born in April 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia. His parents were wealthy and had a commitment to public service. Nabokov, who categorized himself as "a perfectly normal trilingual…
Mashen
Shortly after his marriage to Véra, Nabokov began Mashen'ka , derived from an earlier, abandoned novel entitled "Happiness" - a title he retained almost until publication. On February 15, 1926,…
Lectures on Literature
Stories of Nabokov's presence on campus and his lecture style have grown beyond local legend. Cornell alumni recall Véra as a near appendage to the professor - she passed out…
Korol, dama, valet. Berlin, 1928 (King, Queen, Knave, 1968)
Korol', dama, valet was, like Mashen'ka, conceived, executed, and published in just over a year, with one excerpt appearing in Rul'. It focuses on the lives of three Germans: Franz;…
Pnin. Garden City, New York, 1957
Knowing from the start that he might never find a publisher for Lolita - and that if he did, he might have to resign his Cornell position - Nabokov began…