----- Original Message -----
From Dmitri
Nabokov
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 9:33 AM
I know we
shall all be grateful to David
Morris for finally unmasking VN as a liguistic [sic] showoff. I, personally, would be grateful if he would illustrate his vision with a few specific
instances. That
would help me read my father with a new perspective, and finally give me insight
into locutions whose meaning, it seems, has
escaped me ever since, when I was fourteen, he first
gave me a novel of his to read.
It was Bend Sinister and, naïvely, I thought I understood most of it,
partly because I was then studying Shakespeare. When I was stumped, he was always ready to expain, but, since Mr. Morris
has at last established that Father was little more than a
nacissistic nobody, I see now why he never once owned up to having
said something for the sake of showing off. Live and learn. While
he's at it, Mr. Morris might clarify his assessment of "so many
quotes" from VN.
With utmost respect for
such perspicacity,
Dmitri
Nabokov