First experiences in writing
As a child I loved writing imaginary stories using a white pencil which being invisible on paper afforded magical possibilities. At 13, when a cousin of mine suggested that we should each write a poem and see who did it better, I chose a volume of verse in the library and discreetly copied out a couple of pretty stanzas. My cousin’s amazement at my proficiency stung my pride, prompting me to try whether I could not surprise him with something of my own making. So I retired to the smallest room in the house and there composed my first poem. It fell rather flat.
Other personal experiences I consider remarkable or unusual
The mysterious fact of my having managed somehow to smuggle out of Russia, which I hastily left at the tender age of 19, a sufficient amount of word material to write my books in exile amid a babble of foreign tongues.
Idiosyncrasies, if any
The squeak of cotton wool, the touch of satin.
Personal preferences
Hot sun, bathing, first cigarette before breakfast, writing in bed, boxing matches.
Personal dislikes
Books with a Message. Studs. Dictators. East Wind. Oysters. Wireless sets; voluble conversation about same.
Superstitions
Once, in London, I dreamt of a green wall and the very next day, I was introduced to a person whose name turned out to be Greenwall. I never met him again, nor did that meeting in any way affect the course of my existence but several years later I picked up a book from a stall and its title was Dreams and Their Meaning by A. Greenwall.
The vocation I was advised to follow
The one I followed.
World War service. Army, Navy, Red Cross, etc.
I was too young for the War. Sometimes I can imagine myself going to a small informal war in a warm hilly place, just for a lark, as I should go big game hunting—say. But on the whole, war, especially the popular international kind, seems to me a pastime for solemn fools and slaves.
Clubs, fraternities, organizations, etc.
I dislike clubs, I hate organizations, and I loathe fraternities.
Hobbies, collections, etc.
The study and collection of butterflies and moths.
My favorite outdoor sports
I played football up to 1933, keeping goal; was sometimes brilliant and always unsound. I also played a good deal of tennis.
My favorite indoor sport
Chess, and especially the composing of chess-problems some of which I have published. I was the first Russian to compose a crossword puzzle, inventing, too, its Russian name which has now entered the language so thoroughly that people laugh when I say it is the child of my brain.
Favorite book and why
The book I shall write someday. Also: Eugene Onegin, Hamlet, Madame Bovary, The Shropshire Lad. Generally speaking, I like books that are well written—I don’t mind what they are about.
Favorite author and why
Don’t know—I prefer books to authors.
[Questions on the forthcoming novel, still untitled in its English version]
[What was its source?]
None. All my novels are inventions pure and simple. I am never interested in my characters. It is just a game and the playthings are put back into the box when I have finished.
[Where and how did you write it?]
I wrote it in Berlin. First (as I always do) I composed it completely in my mind, which is a very exhausting business, but quite indispensable in my case. This took me about half a year (my other books went through a longer incubation period), after which I had the book perfectly clear, so that I felt every page of it, much as a botanist feels the flora of a given place mentioned in his presence—a compound impression which he knows he can at once put down in full detail if he chooses. The next stage—the actual writing of the book (which I always do by hand and generally lying in bed)—was comparatively an easy matter (and took about two months). I had only to copy out in ink the sentences ready in my mind and then to correct very carefully anything that might have got blurred or distorted in the act of copying. This done, I dictated the book to my wife, who typed it. All this refers to the Russian original. When translating it, I again had to rewrite it by hand, changing a lot, because I saw it all in another, English, rhythm and color.
[Did you do any unusual research for your book?]
Well, I did go to an oculist to discuss my hero’s blindness, but I don’t think that is very unusual.
* Answered Nov. 19, 1937. Publicity questionnaire for VN’s first novel published in America, Laughter in the Dark (1938; Kamera obskura, 1932–33) (Bobbs-Merrill note: “If it were not for the fact that there is a direct relationship between the information you give us and the sale of your book we would not bother you at all”). In DLB Yearbook 1985, Biographical Documents, II, 28–30, reproduced from Bobbs-Merrill manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington; “[Laughter in the Dark] Answers to Publicity Questionnaire,” VNA Berg.