Biography of Nabokov

Biography of Nabokov

I have just finished reading the first volume of Brain Boyd’s magisterial (there is no other word) biography of Nabokov. At 500 pages it covers only his years in Russia and other European countries. I have never felt so steeped in the great man, and I have been seriously steeped. I now know the length and shape of his toenails. I wrote to Professor Boyd (who is writing a biography of Karl Popper) just to exchange thoughts with a fellow Nabokovian of genuine distinction. I sent him my little essays on Lolita, which appear on this blog. We had a lively correspondence. What struck me with particular force was the remarkable combination of facets that compose Nabokov’s person and personality: tall, slender, handsome, Russian, multi-lingual, a poet, a playwright, a novelist, a lepidopterist, a boxer, a chess player, a tennis player, and a goalkeeper. Many men in one man. Is there any unity to be found there? If there is, it is not easily discernible. The closest common factor I can see is the aesthete—but of a broad kind. I see it in the writing, obviously, but also in the chess, tennis, butterflies, and even in the boxing and goal-keeping. I can’t think of a good parallel in other Great Men, but I sense some of it in myself: I too combine the athletic with the writerly without sensing any schism. I also had a fascination with butterflies as a boy (and still do: I am rearing some caterpillars now); I even enjoyed the martial arts in my younger days, particularly wrestling. But back to Nabokov: his vision, his dedication, his arrogance (add inverted commas), his uncompromising attitude, his loves and hates, his genius, his uniqueness. He packed a lot into one man, one life. He never wrote about himself in his fictional works, but it is easy to see him as a Nabokovian character—half human, half mythical, smooth, brittle, heroic, touchy, tough, not afraid of a fight, dreamy. He is a kind of good Humbert Humbert. I’m looking forward to reading the second volume of his biography, dealing with his American incarnation and the unleashing of Lolita.