The finding aid for the Nabokov family papers and other materials (in Dmitri Nabokov's possession when he died, and donated to Harvard, his alma mater, by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation) is now complete. The material is open for researchers. There is also an online finding aid.

Brian Boyd

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society is soliciting abstracts for two Nabokov panels at the 2020 MLA Convention in Seattle:

CFP - The International Vladimir Nabokov Society MLA 2020, Seattle: Nabokov and Contemporary Writing

Dear Nabokovians:

Thank you to the 56 of you who have renewed your IVNS memberships for 2019.            

Professor Barabtarlo.

On the first day of class, one of several with Professor Barabtarlo, he announced that we must read each book twice: The Defense, Master and Margarita, Doctor Zhivago, The First Circle. Once in order to get the gist of the matter, a second time to truly appreciate the artistry. If this would not be feasible for any of us, then it would be perfectly all right to not continue further in the course. One student seated in the back row politely excused himself. And we proceeded.

In my long friendship with Gene we shared various Nabokovian pleasures, the most spine-tingling of which occurred on the Connecticut shore in the 1980s. Gene had come to speak to my seminar at Wesleyan in early March. The next day we went for a long walk along the deserted beach--my husband was leading us to a distant promontory. Along the way Gene picked up one half of a conch shell and I the other; he said: this is the Greek etymology of “symbol” (to throw together), leading me to ask if he’d traced the shell motif through Nabokov’s novels. He hadn’t. I started my catalogue with Speak Memory, where Colette injures her foot on a mussel shell.