Brian Boyd "Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years" (Princeton
University, 1991)
Lord Snowdon, Brian
Boyd, AY,p.609, VN aged 73: "Early in a foggy December, Lord Snowdon arrived
to photograph Nabokov - a month after Youssuf Karsh had been on a similar
mission - for the special issue of Saturday Review of the Arts. Nabokov
enjoyed Snowdon's company as he clambered up to the hotel roof or stopped on a
mistily soulful hillside, in shops, cafés, and restaurants, and back in his
office, to pose for one of the most diverse porfolios of portraits any
photographer had assembled of him." (note 20: Diary; VN to Edmund White,
December 4, 1972, VNA)
Edmund White, Brian
Boyd, AY, p.607/08: "Late in October, he received a long cable from Edmund
White, a senior editor for the new Saturday Review of the Arts, which
planned to publish a special...Could he in turn single out any American writers
he admired? (note 15: "Edmund White to VN, October 24, 1973, VNA, SRA,
January 6,1973,4.)...softened by White's mention of mutual friends Simon
Karlinsky, Peter Kemeny, and William F, Buckley, and by the thought that a
little essay like this could nicely round out Strong Opinions...He spent
a good deal of November painfully composing this brief essay, "On Inspiration."
(note 16: Diary, November 5-17, 1972; pub. SRA,January 6,1973, repr.
SO,308-14))...Several months later, Nabokov would read Edmund White's own first
novel, Forgetting Elena, and think itt an example of inspiration.
Asked in a 1975 interview whom he most admired among current American writers,
he answered Edmund White (and Updike, and Salinger)...[he] would do more than
anyone else to launch White's career." (note 17: Gerald Clarke interview with
VN, Esquire, July 1975, 133; BB interview with White, March,
1988)."
Following Fran Assa's indication ("Vladimir Nabokov, Selected
Letters 1940-1977," Ed. D.N and M.Bruccoli (A Harvest/HBJ Book) on White, Elena
and "A Woman."
p504 to Edmund White
(1973): "Many thanks for this beautiful New Year gift (note: The
January 1973 issue, which included VN's essay "Inspiration," Lord Snowdon's
photos of VN, and critical assesments.) You have never set eyes upon me, and
yet, by a flash of inspiration, you chose from the porfolio my best likeness for
the cover...and that the picture on p.43 (poncho plus a dream of infinity) is a
no less amusing parody of the Argentine dreamer...My own article has been
reproduced with a precision that in itself is a soft-beaming joy not often
granded by editors..." Lots of interesting information, not copied down (
eg: concerning the reproduction of a painting of Pygmalion embracing
his statue of Galatea..."one of my most ancient and best known
successes").
p.511 to Lord Snowdon
(1973): "Many thanks for the inscribed copy of your Views of
Venice...that shaggy dachshund straining in one direction..."
p.545 to Frederic H. Hills
(1975): ..."Here is another matter I
would like to submit to you. I think you have read Edmund White's marvelous
first novel FORGETTING ELENA. He has now written another one, A WOMAN. I have
not yet seen it but Karlinsky of Berkeley, a fine judge of literature, has a
very high opinion of it. White has some difficulty finding a published because
the book is too good. Would you agree to consider it for McG-H if he sends you a
typescript? Would you read it personally..."