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Fw: VN and a cat
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Date
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EDITOR's NOTE. Michael JuliaR, COMPILER of the standard VN bibliography,
supplies the full story. Note that Sarton's account of the vn CONNECTION
does not appear in the original FUR PERSON or the early paperback.
----------
From: M Juliar <michael@juliar.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: VN and a cat
Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 7:41 AM
From: Michael Juliar, michael@juliar.com
Re: What VN novel was in part conceived with a cat on the author's chest?
The short answer is Lolita, possibly. The long answer is in May Sarton's,
The Fur Person (my paperback edition is Norton, New York, 1983). In the
1978 preface to a new edition (the original was issued in 1957), she wrote:
When my kind publishers asked me to write a preface for this new edition, I
wondered how I could possibly go back the twenty years since The Fur Person
[Sarton's cat] began his life in literature. What was there to say? Then it
occurred to me that Tom Jones [alias the Fur Person] had one important
experience that I had not told at the time and that would add a rather
special lustre to his fame.
Before Judy [Sarton's live-in friend, Judy Matlack] and I moved to 14
Wright St. in Cambridge, we lived for a few years in the early 1950s in a
rented house at 9 Maynard Place. When Judy had a sabbatical leave, we
sublet to Vladimir Nabokov and his beautiful wife, Véra, and they were
delighted to accept Tom Jones as a cherished paying guest during their
stay. What a bonanza for a gentleman cat to be taken into such a notable
family with kind Véra and Felidae-lover Vladimir! And to hear cat language
translated into Russian.
My study at Maynard Place was at the top of the house; a small, sunny room,
one wall lined with books, and on the windowed side a long trestle table
and a straight chair. Nabokov removed this austere object and replaced it
with a huge overstuffed armchair where he could write half lying down. Tom
Jones soon learned that he was welcome to install himself at the very heart
of genius on Nabokov's chest, there to make starfish paws, purr
ecstatically, and sometimes--rather paiinfully for the object of his
pleasure--knead. I like to imagine that Lolita was being dreamed that year
and that Tom Jones' presence may have had something to do with the creation
of that sensuous world. At any rate, for him it was a year of grandiose
meals and subtle passions.
There are a few more paragraphs about a failed reunion some years between
the Nabokovs and Tom Jones (raw liver at tea time, agoraphobia),
accompanied by his owners. My miserable cat allergy is beginning to act up.
I have to go.
Michael Juliar
supplies the full story. Note that Sarton's account of the vn CONNECTION
does not appear in the original FUR PERSON or the early paperback.
----------
From: M Juliar <michael@juliar.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: VN and a cat
Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 7:41 AM
From: Michael Juliar, michael@juliar.com
Re: What VN novel was in part conceived with a cat on the author's chest?
The short answer is Lolita, possibly. The long answer is in May Sarton's,
The Fur Person (my paperback edition is Norton, New York, 1983). In the
1978 preface to a new edition (the original was issued in 1957), she wrote:
When my kind publishers asked me to write a preface for this new edition, I
wondered how I could possibly go back the twenty years since The Fur Person
[Sarton's cat] began his life in literature. What was there to say? Then it
occurred to me that Tom Jones [alias the Fur Person] had one important
experience that I had not told at the time and that would add a rather
special lustre to his fame.
Before Judy [Sarton's live-in friend, Judy Matlack] and I moved to 14
Wright St. in Cambridge, we lived for a few years in the early 1950s in a
rented house at 9 Maynard Place. When Judy had a sabbatical leave, we
sublet to Vladimir Nabokov and his beautiful wife, Véra, and they were
delighted to accept Tom Jones as a cherished paying guest during their
stay. What a bonanza for a gentleman cat to be taken into such a notable
family with kind Véra and Felidae-lover Vladimir! And to hear cat language
translated into Russian.
My study at Maynard Place was at the top of the house; a small, sunny room,
one wall lined with books, and on the windowed side a long trestle table
and a straight chair. Nabokov removed this austere object and replaced it
with a huge overstuffed armchair where he could write half lying down. Tom
Jones soon learned that he was welcome to install himself at the very heart
of genius on Nabokov's chest, there to make starfish paws, purr
ecstatically, and sometimes--rather paiinfully for the object of his
pleasure--knead. I like to imagine that Lolita was being dreamed that year
and that Tom Jones' presence may have had something to do with the creation
of that sensuous world. At any rate, for him it was a year of grandiose
meals and subtle passions.
There are a few more paragraphs about a failed reunion some years between
the Nabokovs and Tom Jones (raw liver at tea time, agoraphobia),
accompanied by his owners. My miserable cat allergy is beginning to act up.
I have to go.
Michael Juliar