Dear Dmitri,

 

            It is heartening to learn that your visitor, “as American as April in Arizona,” produced “an impeccable Slavic ‘o’,” pronouncing “Nabokov”.

            On a less uplifting note, I blew it on Nabokov wearer of bow ties. I glanced at volume one of Boyd’s two-volume biography (1990 edition)

            and espied Nabokov, between 1916—1922, wearing no fewer than five (5) bow ties! Judging by the sampling of photos in both volumes of Boyd,

Nabokov appears to have eschewed bow ties for neckties by the late twenties. There is even a photograph of Nabokov in 1929 collecting with his butterfly net, wearing a necktie. Do you have any personal recollection of seeing your father wearing a bow tie?

 

Best wishes,

 

Jerry Katsell