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Re: QUERY: Letter to VN's mother quoted in Boyd's VNRY
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Answers below.
Brian Boyd
On 22/04/2007, at 7:41 AM, NABOKV-L wrote:
> Brian Boyd quotes a very interesting unpublished letter that VN
> wrote to
> his mother at the time of writing MARY (I, 244-245): "My hero is not a
> very likeable person, but amongst the others there are very sweet
> people... I know how each one smells, walks, eats, and I understand
> how
> God as he created the world found this a pure, thrilling joy. WE [his
> emphasis] are translators of God's creation, his little plagiarists
> and
> imitators, we dress up what he wrote, as a charmed commentator
> sometimes
> gives an extra grace to a line of genius."
>
> 1. Was this letter originally in English or in Russian?
Russian.
> 2. Who showed this letter to Boyd, according to his words Vera Nabokov
> denied to give him VN letters to his mother?
Although Vera Nabokov at first would not let me see these letters,
she eventually brought them to me.
> 3. Who translate this letter and from which language?
I did.
> 4. In Russian edition of Brian Boyd they cited the letter from
> original or
> just translated from English edition?
As noted in the Predislovie k russkomu izdaniyu, p. 8, "everything
cited from a Russian-language source is quoted from the original,
whether previously published or not, so that this edition is also the
first to include its many Russian materials, in Nabokov's hand and in
others'--diaries, letters, verse, fiction, plays, reviews,
reminiscences--in the very words in which they were framed."
>
> Please, answer me on these questions, they are very important,
> because of
> some difference in translations.
>
> Rusina Volkova
>
> [EDNOTE. Re: your second question above, this letter was
> presumably among the many letters from VN to his mother in the VN
> archives in Montreux which Brian Boyd consulted when writing his
> biography. Perhaps BB or DN can answer the other questions for
> you. -- SES]
>
> Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
> Search archive with Google:
> http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
>
> Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
> Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
> View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Brian Boyd
On 22/04/2007, at 7:41 AM, NABOKV-L wrote:
> Brian Boyd quotes a very interesting unpublished letter that VN
> wrote to
> his mother at the time of writing MARY (I, 244-245): "My hero is not a
> very likeable person, but amongst the others there are very sweet
> people... I know how each one smells, walks, eats, and I understand
> how
> God as he created the world found this a pure, thrilling joy. WE [his
> emphasis] are translators of God's creation, his little plagiarists
> and
> imitators, we dress up what he wrote, as a charmed commentator
> sometimes
> gives an extra grace to a line of genius."
>
> 1. Was this letter originally in English or in Russian?
Russian.
> 2. Who showed this letter to Boyd, according to his words Vera Nabokov
> denied to give him VN letters to his mother?
Although Vera Nabokov at first would not let me see these letters,
she eventually brought them to me.
> 3. Who translate this letter and from which language?
I did.
> 4. In Russian edition of Brian Boyd they cited the letter from
> original or
> just translated from English edition?
As noted in the Predislovie k russkomu izdaniyu, p. 8, "everything
cited from a Russian-language source is quoted from the original,
whether previously published or not, so that this edition is also the
first to include its many Russian materials, in Nabokov's hand and in
others'--diaries, letters, verse, fiction, plays, reviews,
reminiscences--in the very words in which they were framed."
>
> Please, answer me on these questions, they are very important,
> because of
> some difference in translations.
>
> Rusina Volkova
>
> [EDNOTE. Re: your second question above, this letter was
> presumably among the many letters from VN to his mother in the VN
> archives in Montreux which Brian Boyd consulted when writing his
> biography. Perhaps BB or DN can answer the other questions for
> you. -- SES]
>
> Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
> Search archive with Google:
> http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
>
> Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
> Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
> View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm