After A.Sklyarenko inquired about Boris Vian,
the name of Vian's friend, Raymond Queneau, came up in the List..
There are various references by Nabokov to
R.Q's 1947 "Exercices de Style," but here we come to the
connection Zazie/Lolita.
From letter 312, written by Edmund
Wilson (January 25,1960): "...Have you read Queneau's Zazie dans le
Métro? which has been described as France's answer to Lolita. If not, I
think you should - though it suffers somwehat from the whimsical vain that has
got into French writing:Giraudoux,Aymé, Anouilh,etc."
V.Nabokov's answer
(letter 313,April 5, 1960) ..."Yes, I admire greatly ZAZIE
DANS LE METRO, it is quite a masterpiece in its "whimsical" genre. ( Isn't all
art whimsical, from Shakespeare to Joyce?)"
B.Boyd
AY ("Lolita Sparks, 299) "Lolita would have to wait a
little longer than Pnin for its first American dust jacket.
..Particularly enthusiastic was novelis Raymond Queneau. whose 1959 novel
Zazie dans le Métro would translate Lolita's puckishness into the
streets of Paris and a lighter mood."(note 39: Douissia Ergaz to VN, July
224, 1956,VNA)