Часть текста: in mind, however, that, later in life, Father might have expressed certain thoughts differently. The lectures were partly in typescript and partly in manuscript, replete with Nabokov's corrections, additions, deletions, occasional slips of the pen, and references to previous and subsequent installments of the course. I have limited myself to what editing seemed necessary for the presentation of the lectures in essay form. If Nabokov had been alive, he might perhaps have performed more radical surgery. He might also have added that the gruesome throes of realistic suicide he finds unacceptable onstage (in "The Tragedy of Tragedy") are now everyday fare on kiddies' TV, while "adult" entertainment has long since outdone all the goriness of the Grand Guignol. He might have observed that the aberrations of theatrical method wherein the illusion of a barrier between stage and audience is shattered - a phenomenon he considered "freakish" - are now commonplace: actors wander and mix; the audience is invited to participate; it is then applauded by the players in a curious reversal of roles made chic by Soviet performers ordered to emulate the mise-en-sce´ne of party congresses; and the term "happening" has already managed to grow obsolescent. He might have commented that the quest for originality for its own sake has led to ludicrous excesses and things have taken their helter-skelter course in random theatre as they have in random music and in random painting. Yet...

2. Lolita. Part Two. Chapters 9 - 16

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Часть текста: was on the other hand a good example of a not strikingly beautiful child revealing to the perspicacious amateur some of the basic elements of nymphet charm, such as a perfect pubescent figure and lingering eyes and high cheekbones. Her glossy copper hair had Lolita’s silkiness, and the features of her delicate milky-white face with pink lips and silverfish eyelashes were less foxy than those of her likesthe great clan of intra-racial redheads; nor did she sport their green uniform but wore, as I remember her, a lot of black or cherry darka very smart black pullover, for instance, and high-heeled black shoes, and garnet-red fingernail polish. I spoke French to her (much to Lo’s disgust). The child’s tonalities were still admirably pure, but for school words and play words she resorted to current American and then a slight Brooklyn accent would crop up in her speech, which was amusing in a little Parisian who went to a select New England school with phoney British aspirations. Unfortunately, despite “that French kid’s uncle” being “a millionaire,” Lo dropped Eva for some reason before I had had time to enjoy in my modest way her fragrant presence in the Humbert open house. The reader knows what importance I attached to having a bevy of page girls, consolation prize nymphets, around my Lolita. For a while, I endeavored to interest my senses in Mona Dahl who was a good deal around, especially during the spring term when Lo and she got so enthusiastic about dramatics. I have often wondered what secrets outrageously treacherous Dolores Haze had imparted to Mona while blurting out to me by urgent and well-paid ...

3. Интервью Набокова на английском языке. Playboy, 1964 г.

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Часть текста: he came to Montreux in mid-March, 1963. The present text takes into account the order of my interviewer's questions as well as the fact that a couple of consecutive pages of my typescript were apparently lost in transit. Egreto perambis doribus! With the American publication of Lolita in 1958, your fame and fortune mushroomed almost overnight from high repute among the literary cognoscenti-- which you bad enjoyed for more than 30 years-- to both acclaim and abuse as the world-renowned author of a sensational bestseller. In the aftermath of this cause celebre, do you ever regret having written Lolita? On the contrary, I shudder retrospectively when I recall that there was a moment, in 1950, and again in 1951, when I was on the point of burning Humbert Humbert's little black diary. No, I shall never regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle-- its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look. Of course she completely eclipsed my other works-- at least those I wrote in English: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, my short stories, my book of recollections; but I cannot grudge her this. There is a queer, tender charm...

4. Eugene Onegin. A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin. Chapter one

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Часть текста: Not thinking to amuse the haughty world, having grown fond of friendship's heed, I wish I could present you with a gage 4 that would be worthier of you — be worthier of a fine soul full of a holy dream, of live and limpid poetry, 8 of high thoughts and simplicity. But so be it. With partial hand take this collection of pied chapters: half droll, half sad, 12 plain-folk, ideal, the careless fruit of my amusements, insomnias, light inspirations, unripe and withered years, 16 the intellect's cold observations, and the heart's sorrowful remarks. CHAPTER ONE To live it hurries and to feel it hastes. Prince Vyazemski I “My uncle has most honest principles: when he was taken gravely ill, he forced one to respect him 4 and nothing better could invent. To others his example is a lesson; but, good God, what a bore to sit by a sick person day and night, not stirring 8 a step away! What base perfidiousness to entertain one half-alive, adjust for him his pillows, 12 sadly serve him his medicine, sigh — and think inwardly when will the devil take you?” II Thus a young scapegrace thought as with post horses in the dust he flew, by the most lofty will of Zeus 4 the heir of all his kin. Friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan! The...

5. Eugene Onegin. A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin. Chapter six

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Часть текста: alone has driven home to sleep. II All has grown quiet. In the drawing room the heavy Pustyakov snores with his heavy better half. 4 Gvozdin, Buyanov, Petushkov, and Flyanov (who is not quite well) have bedded in the dining room on chairs, with, on the floor, Monsieur Triquet 8 in underwaistcoat and old nightcap. All the young ladies, in Tatiana's and Olga's rooms, are wrapped in sleep. Alone, sadly by Dian's beam 12 illumined at the window, poor Tatiana is not asleep and gazes out on the dark field. III With his unlooked-for apparition, the momentary softness of his eyes, and odd conduct with Olga, 4 to the depth of her soul she's penetrated. She is quite unable to understand him. Jealous anguish perturbs her, 8 as if a cold hand pressed her heart; as if beneath her an abyss yawned black and dinned.... “I shall perish,” says Tanya, 12 “but perishing from him is sweet....

6. Lolita. Part Two. Chapters 3 - 8

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Часть текста: that milk bar I visited a moment ago? It was, of all things, The Frigid Queen. Smiling a little sadly, I dubbed her My Frigid Princess. She did not see the wistful joke. Oh, d not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impressin that I did not manage to be happy. Readeer must understand that in the possession and thralldom of a nymphet the enchanted traveler stands, as it were, beyond happiness. For there is no other bliss on earth comparable to that of fondling a nymphet. It is hors concours , that bliss, it belongs to another class, another plane of sensitivity. Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradisea paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flamesbut still a paradise. The able psychiatrist who studies my caseand whom by now Dr. Humbert has plunged, I trust, into a state of leporine fascinationis no doubt anxious to have me take Lolita to the seaside and have me find there, at last, the “gratification” of a lifetime urge, and release from the...

7. Review by Brian Boyd, Robert Michael Pyle

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Часть текста: by Brian Boyd unless otherwise noted." (A number are noted as being by Nabokov fils, but certainly not all.) From the Reviews: "Some selectivity could have made for a more accessible volume, though the care with which it has been assembled is an impressive testament to the deep devotion that Nabokov continues to inspire almost 25 years after his death. Apart from entomologists and Nabokov fans, it is difficult to imagine that many readers will last the enormous distance." - Simon Caterson, The Age "While few readers will want to study the scientific articles reprinted here, their presence in this striking miscellany operates in subtle ways to remind us that Nabokov (who referred to himself as VN), was also a student "of that other VN, Visible Nature"." - Jay Parini, The Guardian "Nabokovian humour shines through these writings, illustrated by a note he penned to Hugh Hefner pointing out how the carefully positioned wings and eyespot of a butterfly can be made to look like the Playboy bunny motif." - Steve Connor, The Independent "This book glistens like a rainforest: swarming with sap and colour, with love and death." - Robert Winder, New Statesman " Nabokov's Butterflies is a book trying to be many books (.....) The thematic anthology has its charms, but they are rather modest ones. (...) And it's hard to see what we gain from the frequent short flashes of administrative communciation from the letters." - Michael Wood, The New York Review of Books "Even Nabokov, however, might tire of a collection noting every time a moth flits by a lamp in Nabokov's writings. (...) Presumably, the prosaic poems bear the bruises of translation from the Russian by Nabokov's son, Dmitri. With few exceptions, the excerpts from longer fiction falter out of context; Nabokov's butterflies were...

8. Eugene Onegin. A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin. Chapter four

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Часть текста: by Aleksandr Pushkin Chapter four CHAPTER FOUR La morale est dans la nature des choses. Necker VII The less we love a woman the easier 'tis to be liked by her, and thus more surely we undo her 4 among bewitching toils. Time was when cool debauch was lauded as the art of love, trumpeting everywhere about itself, 8 taking its pleasure without loving. But that grand game is worthy of old sapajous of our forefathers' vaunted times; 12 the fame of Lovelaces has faded with the fame of red heels and of majestic periwigs. VIII Who does not find it tedious to dissemble; diversely to repeat the same; try gravely to convince one 4 of what all have been long convinced; to hear the same objections, annihilate the prejudices which never had and hasn't 8 a little girl of thirteen years! Who will not grow weary of threats, entreaties, vows, feigned fear, notes running to six pages, 12 betrayals, gossiping, rings, tears, surveillances of aunts, of mothers, and the onerous friendship of husbands! IX Exactly thus my Eugene thought. In his first youth he had been victim of tempestuous errings 4 and of unbridled passions. Spoiled by a habitude of life, with one thing for a while enchanted, disenchanted with another, 8 irked slowly by desire, irked, too, by volatile success, ...

9. Eugene Onegin. A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin. Chapter eight

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Часть текста: of our ancientry, and the heart's tremulous dreams. II And with a smile the world received her; the first success provided us with wings; the aged Derzhavin noticed us — and blessed us 4 as he descended to the grave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III And I, setting myself for law only the arbitrary will of passions, sharing emotions with the crowd, 4 I led my frisky Muse into the hubbub of feasts and turbulent discussions — the terror of midnight patrols; and to them, in mad feasts, 8 she brought her gifts, and like a little...

10. Lolita. Part One. Chapters 28 - 33

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Часть текста: If my happiness could have talked, it would have filled that genteel hotel with a deafening roar. And my only regret today is that I did not quietly deposit key “342” at the office, and leave the town, the country, the continent, the hemisphere,indeed, the globethat very same night. Let me explain. I was not unduly disturbed by her self-accusatory innuendoes. I was still firmly resolved to pursue my policy of sparing her purity by operating only in the stealth of night, only upon a completely anesthetized little nude. Restraint and reverence were still my motto-even if that “purity” (incidentally, thoroughly debunked by modern science) had been slightly damaged through some juvenile erotic experience, no doubt homosexual, at that accursed camp of hers. Of course, in my old-fashioned, old-world way, I, Jean-Jacques Humbert, had taken for granted, when I first met her, that she was as unravished as the stereotypical notion of “normal child” had been since the lamented end of the Ancient World B. C. and its fascinating practices. We are not surrounded in our enlighted era by little slave flowers that can be casually plucked between business and bath as they used to be in the days of the Romans; and we do not, as dignified Orientals did in still more luxurious times, use tiny entertainers fore and aft between the mutton and the rose sherbet. The whole point is that the old link between the adult world and the child world has been completely severed...

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