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3. Literature
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96 three Literature h Between the ages of ten and fifteen in St. Petersburg, I must have read more fiction and poetry—English, Russian, French—than in any other five-year period of my life. [. . .] I was a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with large library. —Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions Pushkin and Tolstoy,Tiutchev and Gogol rose up in the four corners of my world. —Vladimir Nabokov, Other Shores1 I am also aware that my father was responsible for my appreciating very early in life the thrill of a great poem. —Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov was a great aficionado and connoisseur of literature . His diverse literary interests are manifest in his voluminous library at the St. Petersburg family residence, which contained, alongside professional books, belles lettres in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and other languages.2 A passionate bibliophile,Vladimir Dmitrievich possessed broad literary erudition. This is confirmed by even such an unfavorably inclined memoirist as Kornei Chukovsky. Chukovsky, who collaborated with V. D. Nabokov in the daily Speech, reports that Nabokov senior “knew [works of] literature by heart, especially foreign ones; in the newspaper Speech they were so certain of 1. «Пушкин и Толстой, Тютчев и Гоголь встали по четырем углам моего мира»; Ssoch 5:305–6. 2. They are catalogued in Sistematicheskii katalog biblioteki Vladimira Dmitrievicha Nabokova ; Sistematicheskii katalog biblioteki Vladimira Dmitrievicha Nabokova: Pervoe prodolzhenie. See also Klimenko, “Biblioteka doma Nabokovykh.” Literature • 97 his know-it-all nature that they would turn to him for references [. . .]: where is this citation from? In what century did such-and-such a German poet live? And Nabokov would answer.”3 In Speak, Memory, Nabokov recalls that his father “knew à fond the prose and poetry of several countries,knew by heart hundreds of verses (his favorite Russian poets were Pushkin,Tyutchev,and Fet—he published a fine essay on the latter), was an authority on Dickens”(177). 3. «Литературу он знал назубок, особенно иностранную; в газете «Речь» так были уверены в его всезнайстве, что обращались к нему за справками [. . .]: откуда эта цитата? В каком веке жил такой-то германский поэт? И Набоков отвечал»; Chukovsky, Dnevnik (1901–1929), 206. Fig. 6.The ex libris stamp of V. D. Nabokov. Courtesy of the Vladimir Nabokov Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. [44.204.94.166] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:29 GMT) 98 • The Tender Friendship and the Charm of Perfect Accord Nabokov senior’s love for and knowledge of literature and his organizational talents earned him great respect among Russian literati: he served as secretary, deputy president (1909–12), and president (1912–14) of the Literary Fund.4 In addition, between 1912 and 1914, V. D. Nabokov was a member of the All-Russian Literary Society.5 V. D. Nabokov’s great love for literature and his enormous literary erudition set an inspiring example for his son. Nabokov’s interest in literature took shape, to a great extent, under the influence and through the encouragement of his father. As the writer recalls, “in my boyhood I was an extraordinarily avid reader. By the age of 14 or 15 I had read or re-read all Tolstoy in Russian, all Shakespeare in English, and all Flaubert in French—besides hundreds of other books”(SO 46).These hundreds of others included “the works of Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, [. . .] Verlaine, Rimbaud, Chekhov, [. . .] and Alexander Blok” (42–43). 4. As secretary of the Literary Fund,V.D.Nabokov took part in its 1909 jubilee celebrations , at which he delivered a speech, “Piatidesiatiletie Literaturnogo Fonda.” See Vengerov, Iubileinyi sbornik Literaturnogo Fonda, 1859–1909, 80, 474–87. V. D. Nabokov was elected president of the Literary Fund on December 10, 1912, and served in that capacity until August 4, 1914, when, at the outbreak of World War I, he was called to arms. I am greatly indebted to Gennady Obatnin (University of Helsinki) for this information. 5. See S[c]hruba, Literaturnye ob´´edineniia Moskvy i Peterburga 1890–1917 godov, 40. Fig. 7. V. D. Nabokov (standing, back, far left, between the portraits) at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Literary Fund, St. Petersburg City Duma, November 8, 1909. Niva, 1909, 826. Courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. Literature • 99 It should be noted, however, that the father and the son had some differences in their literary tastes. For example, Nabokov senior “prized highly Stendhal, Balzac, and Zola,” whereas Nabokov considered them “three detestable mediocrities” (SM 177). He went on to describe Balzac and Stendhal as “mediocre and overrated” and derided “Balzac’s absurdities and Stendhal’s clichés” (SO 266). While it is difficult to ascertain whether the father’s and son’s views on any given writer differed from the very...