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The article that Jansy Mello mentions was a review essay inspired by
the publication of Boyd's VNAY. As far as I know, the phrase "as
American as April in Arizona" was coined by VN. In that essay I explain
on p. 328:
In order to understand Nabokov's relationship with America, we should
look again at his proud declaration that he was "as American as April
in Arizona." This remark was not merely rhetorical, despite the
artfulness of its alliteration and its apparent allusion to the popular
song "April in Paris." Nabokov actually did spend one April there, when
he won his second Guggenheim Fellowship and took a research leave from
Cornell University for the spring of 1953 (Boyd 223). In Portal,
Arizona, where he and his wife Vera had rented a cottage, Nabokov spent
his mornings collecting butterflies (from 8:00 a.m. until noon or
later) and his afternoons writing (from 2:00 p.m. until dinnertime). On
2 May 1953, he wrote to a friend, Harry Levin, about the spectactular
beauty of the American Southwest and the view from their cottage, in
particular: "The nearer mountains are maroon, spotted with the dark
green of junipers and the lighter green of mesquites, and the far
mountains are purp!
le as in the Wellesley song" (Selected Letters 136). As exemplified by
this lovingly detailed description of April in Arizona, Nabokov's
attitude toward his adopted country combined "the precision of the
artist and the passion of the scentist"--two qualities that were
characteristic of all great storytellers, he old his students of
European literature at Cornell (Boyd 181).
Later in the essay, on p. 332, I add:
In the letter that he wrote to Harry Levin in May 1953, Nabokov not
only rhapsodized over Arizona's beauty but explicitly compared America
to Europe (where Levin and his wife were vacationing at the time): "I
wonder if your account of your trip will make me Europe-sick, or at
least France-sick. I know that every time I come to this dear West, I
feel a pang of recognition, and no Switzerlands could lure me away from
Painted Canyon or Silver Creek" (Selected Letters 137). But only eight
years later, Switzerland did indeed lure Nabokov away from America . . .
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Associate Professor of English
Holy Cross College
>>> jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US> 01/11/07 11:50 PM
>>>
JM: I couldn't ascertain at first who, besides Nabokov, used "as
American as April in Arizona": was it JF himself, did it come from the
article in Wikipedia?. I googled and was barred to access to the
article by SES:
"April in Arizona": Nabokov as an American Writer
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
American Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 325-335