Nabokov-centric Previously Unpublished Updike Interview

Terrific, previously unpublished 2006 Nabokov-centric interview with John Updike. (Via the Nabokv-L forum.)

Favorite quote: "I didn’t realize we had this marvelous man in our midst." (On their overlapping years at Harvard in the early fifties, when Updike was a student and Nabokov a guest lecturer.)

The interviewer is Lila Azam Zanganeh the author of the forthcoming The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness, which looks terrific.

News: Letters to Vera, in Russian (Next Year, in English)

Snob magazine (see this New Yorker "Shouts & Murmurs" for more on the magazine) to publish a selection of Nabokov's letters to Vera. (Don't speak Russian? The collected letters will be available in English in 2011. That's what you get for not knowing Russian: waiting!)

More information here and here.

VN Sighting: Mark Helprin

From the Yale Daily News:

“Get another boat to put your other foot on in case the writing boat sinks,” Helprin said.

Helprin’s near-death experiences as a young man traveling through Europe were also critical to his development as a writer. When he was about 17, the New York-born Helprin was traveling in Europe. Helprin said he rode a motorcycle to Aix-en-Provence, France to impress a French girl there, even though he had never been on a motorcycle before. She rejected him, he said, and on his way back, he crashed.

“The lesson is: don’t drive a motorcycle when you’re depressed,” Helprin said.

Though badly injured, he made his way back to Marseilles, he said, and collapsed near the USS Robert A. Owens. The crew tried to treat the bloodied and feverish Helprin. “For that reason, I’ve always loved the Navy.” Nevertheless, he was still in poor physical condition. Helprin said he traveled to Switzerland to recover, where he met author Vladimir Nabokov and his wife eating breakfast on the balcony of the hotel where all three were staying.

Helprin, mispronouncing Nabokov’s name, shouted, “Nabokov! Nabokov! Isn’t that amazing, because I’m a writer too!”

The rest at Helprin entrances with stories. (Via the Nabokv-L forum.)

Nabokovilia: Richard Burgin

The Nabokov reference embedded below (from the short story "Jonathan and Lillian," collected in The Conference on Beautiful Moments) also appears, in slightly altered form, in Richard Burgin's Rivers Last Longer:

"Eric!" she said, taking his hands, her cheeks coloring slightly after he kissed her.


"This is Louise, fire in my loins, my sin, my soul, Louis -- the Great Garret, who deserves to win next year's Nobel Prize, and every year's for that matter."


Jonathan was impressed that West knew Nabokov as well as Fitzerald, but he had said it with such grandiloquence that Jonathan cringed.


See also this bit from Burgin's "The Identity Club":


He was considered at present an "uncommitted member" and had been debating between Nathanael West and some other writers. Nabokov, whom he might have seriously considered, had already been taken. At least, since he still had a month before he had to commit, he didn't have to dress in costume...

Vegas Valley Book Festival Stuff

Hello! I'm going to be at a couple of different Vegas Valley Book Festival things this week. If you're around and want to say hello, please do.


This Thursday, I'll be here:

• Thursday, November 4, 7:00 pm, Clark County Library Theater. The Perpetual Engine of Hope — Las Vegas Stories Inspired by Iconic Photographs. Local authors P Moss, Dayvid Figler, Oksana Marafioti, Megan Edwards, Alissa Nutting, Juan Martinez, K. W. Jeter, and Geoff Schumacher, moderator, discuss their contributions to the Las Vegas Writes Project 2010: A collection of seven original short stories based on iconic Las Vegas photographs; published by CityLife Books as part of this year’s book festival" (http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org/calendar/)

And this Friday, starting at 5:30 pm, I will be on a bike and I will be reading poems at various places with various people:

• Friday, November 5, 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm First Friday @ 18 b the Arts District My Wheel is in the dark: A Night Ride with Las Vegas Bike Bards. Sponsored by Nevada Humanities, First Friday and the Office of Cultural Affairs First Friday hosts the Vegas Valley Book Festival’s poetry night with Mayor Oscar Goodman and Dayvid Figler reading original haiku poems at 6 pm on the main stage (Colorado Street and California) Featuring a mobile poetry brigade led by Jarrett Keene; with poets Jeffery Bennington Grindley, Harry Fagel, Artikulate, Juan Martinez, Dayvid Figler, Shaun Griffen, and Joan Dudley. Readings at the Government Center, Commerce Street Studios, Trifecta Gallery, Holsum Lofts, Contemporary Arts Center, and the Beat Coffee House — with free shuttle service to some sites (http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org/calendar/)

On Saturday, November 6, starting at 11:30 am, I'll be part of this reading, which is part of an artist-writer set of collaborations titled I Hope You're Feeling Better. I did three collaborations! Two with Jennifer Henry, one with Andreana Donahue. Check them out! At the gallery! The thing that I will read will be brief, and may in fact be an angry e-mail to Jennifer (for to: one of our things was a back-and-forth of graphics and story we modeled on Missing Missy):

• Saturday, November 6, starting at 11:30 am. I Hope You're Feeling Better A collaborative art project featuring work by eighteen Las Vegas writers and visual artists. The exhibition events are supported through funding from the Vegas Valley Book Festival and Nevada Humanities. (http://cac.wildapricot.org/events?eventid=230184&EventViewMode=EventDetails)

I Tell You What to Wear

If you are going to a party and wondering what to wear -- and you are a person who (a) donated to Nevada Public Radio and is getting their magazine delivered, or (b) you are somewhere near a place in Vegas where you can pick up Desert Companion for free, or (c) you are on the Internet -- I tell you:

Open publication - Free publishing - More food

Also: are you thinking of getting someone something? I help you out too (as does the always awesome, always stylish Ms. Sara Nunn):

Open publication - Free publishing - More food

And that is it! I am done telling you what to do for the nonce, other than you should maybe consider getting yourself a nice camel blazer or a tweed sports coat.

Captain Adama Book Festival

Hi! I'll be reading and talking, alongside some awesome writers, over at the Sudden Fiction Latino panel for the Latino Family and Book Festival taking place this weekend in Los Angeles. It's taking place over at California State University, Los Angeles, and our panel is on Saturday, October 9, at 2 pm, in room 136 of Salazar Hall.

Stop in! Say hello!

Note that Captain Adama is all about this festival. Captain Adama!

Also: I was on the radio this morning! KNPR's State of Nevada, talking about my story for the Vegas Valley Book Festival's Las Vegas Writes Project.

Now I am talking about my story to the two cats in our house, whose interest in fiction is not to be underestimated.

Nabokovilia: The Extra Man, by Jonathan Ames

Accidental Google-aided Nabokovilia. From Jonathan Ames's novel The Extra Man:
Her apartment was on the first floor of a house on quiet dead-end in Princeton (it was called Humbert Street and some people in town believed that Nabokov, whose first American home was in Princeton, must have taken note of this when he would go for his constitutional walks), and Elaine had this fantasy of putting her breasts in her opened bedroom window as if she was just leaning out to get some night air, and her window was on an alley, and I was to come long and suck on her breasts in the darkness, and then go away without saying a word.

Nabopop: Bored to Death

Bored to Death's first episode of the second season (titled "Escape from the Dungeon") features a nice bit of Nabopop: When a female student smiles at first-time creative-writing instructor/second-time struggling novelist/bumbling Craigslist-advertising amateur detective Jonathan Ames, his friend (played by Zach Galifianakis) says, "Hello, Nabokov."

(Episode available for streaming for free at the HBO site.)

On Paradise (My contribution to Las Vegas Writes, part of the Vegas Valley Book Festival)

This year, the Vegas Valley Book Festival's Las Vegas Writes project asked some people -- me among them -- to write a short story based on an iconic Vegas photograph. My story is up at their site right now. It is called On Paradise, and you can read it over there. 

There is an event associated with the project! Please attend. There is also a book! Please buy 20 copies to give to everyone you know. 

More stuff:

• On the Vegas Valley Book Festival
• On Las Vegas Writes
• On the Event (also has info on My Wheel is in the Dark: A Night Ride with Las Vegas Bike Bards", a poets-on-bikes thing, also part of the Vegas Valley Book Festival, in which I will also be participating).

Desert Companion

The September/October issue of the Desert Companion is out! And therein I once again tell you what to wear. You'll find the issue in all sorts of places in Las Vegas, but the story is also here at the Desert Companion site or below in this embedded thing:

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

VN Sighting: Laughter in the Park

The good people of New York's nod to Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark (via the Nabokv-L forum):

Sighting: Maxim Shrayer on Five Nabokov Books

Pnin is the immigrant of Nabokov’s American novels. The main character is a Russian professor at an American college, and the novel is to a large extent about Russian culture misunderstood by Westerners. But it is also a truncated love story with a moral dilemma. Pnin himself is not Jewish but Mira, once Pnin’s beloved, is Jewish, and she died in Buchenwald. The story is punctuated by the tension of his trying to forget and being incapable of unremembering. Nabokov was one of the very first American writers to write extensively about the Shoah in a work of fiction. Nabokov wrote Pnin in the 1950s and parts of it were published in the New Yorker, so it is astounding how far ahead of his literary contemporaries Nabokov was in his thinking about the Shoah and how it might be remembered and memorialised.

Read the rest at Five Books. (Via the Nabokv-L forum.)

Nabokov Sighting: Stieg Larsson

From Stieg Larsson and the Mystery of His Fourth Novel:

If you can't wait for more books from the dark Swedish novelist, visit the Stieg Larsson Classics thread on Twitter where writers come up with imaginary titles of classic lit like this tweet: "Nabokov's THE GIRL WHO WASN'T OLD ENOUGH FOR A DRAGON TATTOO."

I Tell You What To Wear

The July/August issue of Desert Companion is out! And therein I tell you what to wear (I also recommended two additional items that had to be cut for space, but they're pasted below the issue if you're curious):



The What-to-Wear Supplemental Items:

1.      The Hermes orange-and-pink cachemire belongs in the blazer’s pocket, though only a brief blush of color should be allowed to peek out: at this price point, the pocket square is a secret extravagance, like the bouquet of kayaks hiding in CityCenter’s austere façade. And if paying over a hundred dollars for bit of silk kept mostly out of sight feels, well, wrong, you may luck into our saleslady, who demonstrated how the cachemire doubles as a woman’s neckerchief. The Hermes two-fer! A bargain! ($130 in the CityCenter Hermes store or online, but the $2.99 Target skull-pattern bandanna is a nice option.)

The J.Press long-sleeve white-and-navy sailor shirt. All branding is aspirational, less about who you are and more about who you want to be. So let’s all agree that we’d much rather be by the ocean, right now, and not in the desert. Picaso, ever aware of fashion’s sensual and dreamy possibilities, wore the sailor shirt, but so have lots of other people. And so can you. ($110 for a nice, boat-neck, Made-in-France one at JPressOnline.com, though other retailers sell less expensive variations.)

Beverly Kenney - Try A Little Tenderness & It's A Most Unusual Day

What a lovely voice. And this Otis Redding cover is my favorite left-field interpretation of a song since Keely Smith's Hard Day's Night.

A+!

From Ian Frazier's Marginal:

Of special interest to readers of this magazine might be Vladimir Nabokov’s copy of Fifty-five Short Stories from The New Yorker, 1940-1950. Nabokov’s handwriting (in English) was small and fluid and precise; in books that he took exception to, such as a translation of “Madame Bovary” by Eleanor Marx Aveling, his correcting marginalia climbed all over the paragraphs like the tendrils of a strangler fig. Nabokov was also a professor of literature, and in his copy of the New Yorker anthology he gave every story a letter grade. The way he wrote each grade in the table of contents next to the story’s title carried the authority of one who expects that hearts will soar or plummet at the sight of his boldly printed capital. Many of the stories did not fare too well, and would not have got their authors into a selective university. Top marks went to Jessamyn West’s “The Mysteries of Life in an Orderly Manner” (A-) and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (A). Prof. Nabokov awarded only two stories in the anthology an A+: “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” by J. D. Salinger, and “Colette,” by Vladimir Nabokov.

Read the rest at the New Yorker.

Dmitri Nabokov, Car Guy (Take Two)

Vera Nabokov and a Bizzarrini Strada

Photos of Dmitri and his family and his cars!

Accidental Nabopop

So also: some accidental Nabopop! Fujiya and Miyagi's Transparent Things.

More Nabokovilia in Martin Amis

So I knew there was some Nabokovilia in Martin Amis's London Fields and The Information, but it wasn't till I visited the former and revisited the latter that I found even more.

See page 303 of London Fields:
Vladimir Nabokov, encouragingly, was a champion insomniac. He believed that this was the best way to divide people: those who slept and those who didn't. The great line in Transparent Things, on of the saddest novels in English: "Night is always a giant but this one was specially terrible."
Fee fie fo fum, goes the giant. How did VN ever slay the thing? I wander. I write. I wring my hands. Insomnia has something to be said for it, in my case. It beats dreaming.


And see too page 238 of The Information:
To paraphrase a critic who also knew about beetles and what they liked, Kafka's beetle took a beetle pleasure, a beetle solace, in all the darkness and the dust and the discards.


Three observations:

1. Amis, in The War Against Cliche, his collection of book reviews, loves to use the same sort of Transparent-Things-insomniacs-or-not-"There's only two kinds of people in this world" line as an opening hook (not often, but often enough: some examples: "It was in Joysprick (1973), I think, that Anthony Burgess first made his grand-sounding distinction between the 'A' novelist and the 'B' novelist" (113), "There are two kinds of long novel" (121), "Dipsomaniacs are either born that way, or they just end up that way" (207)). 
2. The Information's Richard Tull's beetle thoughts have been only slightly reshuffled in transport. Nabokov's original line, from the Kafka chapter in Lectures on Literature, reads: "...curiously enough, Gregor, though a very sick beetle -- the apple wound is festering, and he is starving -- finds some beetle pleasure in crawling among all that dusty rubbish." (Tull festers a bit himself: bitter, ignored, he is a writer of unreadable fiction condemned to read and review lengthy, unreadable biographies.)
3. There's Nabokov in Kingsley too! I'll be checking out the letters and Stanley and the Women presently.