Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0020631, Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:24:59 EDT

Subject
SIGHTING: VN & Howler Blue
Date
Body
Sighting: The Week, September 3-10, "What the great ate, " devoted to
foods of the famous, e. g., Kafka, Capote, Eisenhower, Nietzsche, Sartre,
Warhol, Confucius, Christ, Ronald Reagan (went 70 years without eating a
tomato), Thomas Edison, Hemingway, and Nabokov!

Herewith the Nabokov entry on page 53. :

"Novelist Vladimir Nabokov had passions for writing and butterflies.
But his interest went beyond collecting them. The author of Lolita confided
to a Sports Illustrated reporter that he had once eaten butterflies in
Vermont. `I didn't see any difference between the monarch butterfly and the
viceroy,' he said. `The taste of both was vile...They tasted like almonds and
perhaps a green cheese combination.' "

Entry accompanied by an illustration of a blue butterfly, but NOT N's
Karner Blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis)!!!. Instead gross error, it is
the humongous Blue Mountain Swallowtail (Papillo ulysses) from Indonesia
where N never netted.

Academic Nabokovians, arise! With classes about to begin, warm up
for the year! Get out your red pen, your scalpel, machete, or best of all
unsheathe your kris from Indonesia! What grade would you give a student
who turned in a paper with this howler? What would the ultra fastidious N
have done?

RHB/aka/the Sports Illustrated reporter



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