April 17, 1974
Dear Miss Chudacoff,
I thank you for sending me the list of your questions for an interview in the Welt des Buches. You say that “in some instances” similar questions had been set before. That is an understatement. I am directing you back to Strong Opinions, and listing the pages therein which you might consult for the German translation of my answers. For me to reword them would be a dreadful duplication of labor. Of course, all the quotations should be copyrighted in the name of McGraw-Hill.
I would be glad to meet you, but I would not like to disappoint you: only such answers as are given here or fished out of Strong Opinions may be attributed to me. Direct impressions would be necessarily meager. I must reserve the right to approve the German text.
Do you draw from your own experience or is it all fantasy?
Both.
Some of your characters are pretty cruel,
(NB: many others are saints or artists)
bordering on the perverse perhaps—do you get rid of your own monsters by writing about them like many artists in your and other fields do?
No.
And why do you object to Freud so strongly?
For the same reason that I object to kitsch and astrology. See pp. 23–24, 115–16 (NB).
You were quoted as stating that you loathed Van Veen.1 What do you hate most about him?
The demonic strain in him.
Do you think Ada is especially hard to translate because of your play with sounds and words?
That is one of the difficulties.
How do you feel about other Russian writers, for instance Alexander Solzhenitsyn? Now since he is safe maybe you care to comment, which you did not want to before.
Omit.
And why is the only German you describe in Speak, Memory somebody who takes a delight in watching executions?
I also describe some of my German ancestors.
Do you still work as a lepidopterist?
Yes.
And have you finished your book on butterflies in art?
No. See pp. 135–36, 168–69, 190–91 (NB), 199–201.
Did you accomplish everything you set out to accomplish in life or do you have some regrets?
I have no regrets (see pp. 106–7, though), and have not yet finished milking my mind.
May 15, 1974
Dear Miss Chudacoff,
We shall probably spend part of the summer in Zermatt. I shall be glad to talk to you sometime during the summer but not on a butterfly hike, I cannot imagine what interest there could be for you in seeing me between the rain and the butterfly on a muddy mountain trail. There is nobody more gloomy, silent, and edgy than a lepidopterist in the pursuit of his task.
Here are the answers to your 25 new questions:
What gives you more satisfaction, the actual hunting and finding of a butterfly or the scientific evaluation afterward?
See Strong Opinions.
Have you noticed any changes or sicknesses in butterflies due to air pollution, poisoning of streams and other environmental factors?
None.
Where will you go butterfly hunting this year? Do you have a favorite spot you visit again and again?
No.
Do you ever exchange butterflies with specimens of other lepidopterists?
No.
You said (p. 191) that your American butterfly collections are in American museums. How big is your European collection by now?
About 5000 papered specimens.
In your latest published book Transparent Things you look at a butterfly through the eyes of somebody who does not like them. The animal actually appears to be “particularly gross.” How do you feel about the butterfly as a living animal—do you sometimes just watch and enjoy it or do you approach it purely from a scientific point of view?
See Strong Opinions.
Will this novel—published in 1972 in the U.S.A.—be translated into German in the near future?
Hope so.
Reading this slim volume, one has the feeling death is present throughout this story….What does death mean to you?
Nothing.
One of your characters in Transparent Things says: “It is generally assumed that if man were to establish the fact of survival after death, he would also solve, or be on the way to solving, the riddle of Being.” What exactly was meant by survival after death? Do you mean physical survival or survival of spirit or soul? And do you believe in a life after death?
No comment.
You have often described your insomnia problems. Do you help yourself occasionally—like Hugh Person—by playing several games of tennis in your fantasy as means to go to sleep?
No comment.
Although you prefer to live in the splendor of a Grand Hotel, you are very good at describing dismal third-rate hotels, the Ascot in Transparent Things being the last one in a long row. When did you ever stay in such dreary, melancholy places—or did you ever?
Often.
Film people came to see you and you indicated your willingness to write or help write a screenplay of Ada (p. 125). Yet a movie was never made of your novel (at least not to my knowledge). Are there still plans for a film and why were movie plans abandoned then?
No plans.
Where is the setting of your just-finished novel Look at the Harlequins!?
Five countries.
How long did you work on the new book and how many index cards did you fill?
About 15 months. 800 cards.
What are your plans for the next few months? Do you plan another novel? Or will you start your new memoir Speak on, Memory (p. 198)?
No comment.
Have you been back to the U.S.A. lately and have you noticed any changes?
No comment.
How would you describe the difference between American and European mentality?
What is “European”?
What do you think of the so-called Senior Citizen settlements that are so popular for people over 65 in the U.S.A.?
Nothing.
Next year you shall be married 50 years. In these times of quick marriage and easy divorce there are opinions of all shades about marriage: from a good chance of survival to hopelessly outdated. How do you see the future of this institution for today’s young people?
Don’t care.
You recently received one of America’s most distinguished literary prizes: the National Medal for Literature. Are you as indifferent toward praise as you are toward criticism (Speak Memory, German edition, p. 176)?
It depends.
Did you have a chance to see the German TV production of your novel Invitation to a Beheading? If you did—what did you think of the production, the acting and most importantly of the adaptation of your novel for television?
I was told it was excellent. I never saw it.
Are you interested in the theater in neighboring Lausanne and Geneva? In perhaps working on a play (you wrote seven plays, p. 89) or just plain theatergoing?
No interest.
If there is a gray sky hanging over the Lake of Geneva, does this affect your mood, your work? Is there any type of day that you prefer to work by in Montreux?
No.
Why do you make it so difficult for your interviewer?
Interviewing is a difficult art.
The man Vladimir Nabokov and the writer VN do not have to harmonize, but they must have something to do with each other. Why do you separate the man and the writer so strongly?
I, the man, am a deeply moral, exquisitely kind, old-fashioned and rather stupid person. I, the writer, am different in every respect. It is the writer who answers your last and best question.
From oral exchanges:
Your daily routine in Zermatt
I have breakfast at 7:30. A quarter to eight I saunter out of the hotel with my net, choosing one of the four or five possible trails. Depending on the weather, my hike can last three hours or five. On the average I walk 15 kilometers a day. Quite often, later in the season, I use a cable car. By the way, the chairlift is a beautiful invention, you just glide along. Once in Italy I used a chairlift with music—and not only music, but Puccini and La Traviata. Often I spend two or three hours on the same meadow waiting for a certain Falter. Then perhaps I would find a friendly little Stube where I would have a drink. When it rains, however, a lepidopterist has to have even more patience. Butterflies keep quiet for some time after the rain. This morning it was cloudless, the sun was shining after yesterday’s rain, and nevertheless they did not come out until ten o’clock.
Does the aesthete in you sometimes prevent the scientist Nabokov from killing a butterfly because it happens to be especially beautiful?
Not because it is beautiful. All butterflies are beautiful and ugly at the same time—like human beings. I let it go if it is old and frayed, or if I don’t need it for my collection. I hate to kill a butterfly which is useless to me. It is an unpleasant feeling—you pinch it automatically and you feel guilty afterward.
On being an enthusiastic American
I don’t even know who Mr. Watergate is.
* “Schmetterlinge sind wie Menschen” (“Butterflies Are Like People”), Die Welt, Sept. 26, 1974, Welt des Buches, p. III. Emended typescripts with VN’s manuscript corrections and correspondence, VNA Berg. Intended to coincide with the publication of the German translation of Ada. After nine months of letters and phone calls, VN met Chudacoff at the Hotel Mont-Cervin, Zermatt, where he was hunting butterflies, on June 20, 1974. VN added corrections to an English version of her typescript in Oct. 1974.