Subject: Re: what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man he
was
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin <
mailto:chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
To: D. Barton Johnson <
mailto:chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 10:44 AM
Subject:
FW:
what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man he
was
Dear Dmitri,
I was very glad to read both your letter to Don
and his reply. And if any of my comments recently have added in any way to
your distress I beg your forgiveness. Your description of your father was a
tonic: what a pure, gentle, funny, utterly normal man
he was.
I have no doubt that if I had met him, this is the person I
should have met. He was after all the creator of Pnin, and for that alone
should be remembered with gratitude forever.
But he also created
Pnin's destroyer. He created Lolita, but he also created Humbert & Quilty.
He created Aqua, but he also created Marina who probably murdered her, not to
mention Vaniada. His ability to imagine evil, especially sexual evil, is so
fiendishly good, is it any wonder it gives some of us pause?
The
"porno-graph record" as you so wittily call it, was an aspect of your father's
work too. It just strikes me as odd (at least it strikes me now, since
the subject was recently thrust unwanted upon us) that this aspect of your
father's work has not - - so far as I can recall - - been addressed by any of
his serious critics. Or am I mistaken?
It does seem that, perhaps just
for the reason that his serious critics have chosen to ignore this
aspect of his work, that it has taken on the quality of an elephant in the
room. Someone points to it, and we are all surprise and shock. Elephant? what
elephant?
But the pornographic aspect is there still and all. Maybe you
are correct, and it is the virtuosity of your father's imagination that
explains its force. His brilliant portrayal of the insane homosexual Kinbote
never for a moment caused me to think he might himself be either homosexual or
insane. No one who takes him seriously can possibly confuse him with
pervert Humbert.
But there do seem to be some things about Nabokov we
still don't know.
freundliche Grüsse von
Deine
Carolyn
Carolyn dear: That's the way
he wanted it. Warm greetings,
D.