Sandy
Klein: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/harvard-museum ...Among the treasures
hidden from sight at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History are the world’s biggest
egg, Stephen Jay Gould’s seashells and Vladimir Nabokov’s collection of
butterfly genitalia [...].“Vladimir Nabokov ...
writes in his autobiography about finding a gynandromorph as a young boy, and
then his nanny sat on it. He was very pleased that Harvard had one in its
collection.”
JM: When Nabokov writes about the crushed
gynandromorph he also focuses on one of his favorite books at
that time. I cannot remember if it was (somewhat fittingly) Melville, H.G.Wells
or another writer. Does anyone remember? I'm not sure it is mentioned in
the Mademoiselle chapter in SM. The overall impression I got was that, in his
mind, the associated author was
equally spoilt.