It is with sadness that I learned of the passing of Princess A. L. Shakhovskoy. She was a sweet and kind person. Alas, I had not seen her in over a quarter of a century and only once in all this time, when I was in California, did I speak to her on the telephone, to pass on the regards of her daughter, Natalia Alexeevna Nabokov, who has been a longtime friend to my wife and me.
I’m afraid I must ask you to print the following correction to the article published in her memory in Russkaya mysl’ (no. 2048).1 The article contains a phrase (supposedly said by me to Princess Shakhovskoy) foisted on me by Mr. Berezov’s imagination: “But what am I to do, Aunt, if American readers are only interested in such themes?”
I could not have said this, not only because I never called Princess Shakhovskoy “Aunt,” or discussed Lolita with her, but, most important, because I consider Lolita my best book. Only buoyant blockheads who haven’t actually read the work they’re criticizing could explain away its composition as a vulgar calculation to please some vulgar taste. I doubt that Mr. Berezov was consciously trying to join their number.
Vladimir Nabokov
* Letter to the Editor, Russkaya mysl’, Oct. 8, 1963, 5.