Your knowledge of
the Russian language, literature and Nabokov is an inexaustible
source of richness for you, and for many (often
uncomprehending) readers like me.
Richness? You
are joking. I am like Humbert as he leaves, a contented pauper, Windmuller's
office, or like Pnin as he sobs before Joan Clements saying: "I haf nofing left,
nofing!" If I ever happened to own a small fortune, I have now
squandered it and not even a penny is left (and not only
metaphorically).
is there a soccer team called
Zenit?
Yes, it's the only St.
Petersburg team that plays in the Russian premiere league. I used to be an
ardent Zenit fan in my youth, but now it's over because the team's
main sponsor, the Gasprom company, wants to erect a 300 meter high business
center in the historical area of the city. The flood of people's protests breaks
against the Gasprom head Alexey Miller (a friend of VN's namesake, Mr.
Putin) like the Neva's waters break against the granite
of embankment.
Apropos Martin Amis's article in
Muse. I knew that Amis was a poor writer (I recently tried to read his
best-selling novel Money), but he also turns out to be a poor reader.
His article, The Problem with Nabokov, teems with factual mistakes of
all kinds. Btw., Martin Amis = Sam Martini.
Alexey
Sklyarenko