JM: I found a quote that has been attributed to Nabokov:
"Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual
love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction,
embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among
spurious lives," but no indication from where it has been extracted.
Soon later I reached the NYPL site ("The Life and Works
of Vladimir Nabokov") which was the subject of a recent posting, where I
discovered that, in his novel Mashen'ka, Nabokov had in fact inserted five
of the love letters he'd received from his sweet-heart Lyussa
("Tamara"). At that time ( following a letter
written to his mother in October 1925), he seemed proud that his
characters were "real people, and not (his)
inventions."
Concerning "Machen'ka", VN acknowledges to Edmund
Wilson, twenty years later, that "The girl really existed".
In his later statements, when interviewed, Nabokov's words
were always in stark opposition to this perspective on "real life
characters" and actual epistolary quotes
and inclusions.
While reading the VN/EW Letters I hadn't paid attention
to this admission ( it's probably dated of 1945, if the information is
correct). It might help to understand when his entire attitude related to
fiction suffered such a radical change.
I also vaguely remember the image of a "clean bullett in flabby flesh" ( RLSK?TOoL? Mentioned in
B.Boyd's AY?) used in the quote. It would certainly
help to research further into this matter
should someone help locate it and discover when it was set
down.