Dear Carolyn and listeners,
I have written about Nabokov’s knowledge of German quite a few times,
especially since Field had accused him of copying a passage in ‘Luzhin’ verbatim
straight out of Leonhard Frank’s ‘Bruder und Schwester’, a novel he probably
would not have touched even in a Russian translation. There is a summary
statement on the question in my book ‘Nabokov’s Berlin’ (2001), p.140-141.
I believe I can speak about this issue with some authority as in all
likelihood I am one of the very last people alive who have actually heard
Nabokov speak German. That was in 1966, when in an interview (not published in
English so far but published in volume 21 of his Collected Works in German,
pp.62-75) he said a few sentences about his alleged knowledge of German and his
former disdain for German literature in general (which he said he regretted).
His German, as I heard it spoken, was all right as long as he could stick to the
standard phrases of daily life he remembered, with a very charming Russian
accent, but he was unable to sustain a spontaneous conversation in German. (He
told me off-hand his knowledge of the language was just good enough to order ham
and eggs.)
He left the checking of the German translations of his books entirely to
Véra whose German was much better than his (she had worked for years in a German
law firm known to readers of ‘Dar’) and became ever better though far from fluid
during the thirty years we had to do with each other, when both of them had
gotten over their initial aversion against Germanizing his works at all. He was
especially suspicious in the case of ‘Bend Sinister’ the anonymous first English
translation of which, commissioned by the Pentagon in 1948 to further German
reeducation, after a short check “appalled” him utterly. He rejected its
publication downright in a letter written on August 24, 1948, to Col. Joseph I.
Greene (‘Selected Letters 1940-1977’, p.85-86). I still believe it most unlikely
that he ever read or even noticed Lichberg. The bits of German literature he
quoted in various works are always the same: Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, Bürger’s
dubious ballad ‘Lenore’ und certainly some of the Schiller ballads which all
kids going to schools modeled after the German Gymnasium had to learn. He had
learned ‘Erlkönig’ etc. by heart in the German lessons he had to take in high
school. Even then or later he must have tried to read parts of Goethe’s ‘Faust’,
and he probably tried Hoffmann and a few other classics. During his time in
Crimea, he translated a few Heine songs for a lady who wanted to sing them in
Russian. Also and independently he had great practice in extracting the meaning
from German butterfly atlases and entomological articles. Much later in class,
he taught two German texts: Thomas Mann’s story ‘Das Eisenbahnunglück’ (one of
the shortest short stories Mann ever wrote) which is so easy that with a
dictionary at hand he may very well have read it in German though he quoted from
an American edition. As for Kafka’s ‘Verwandlung,’ Brian Boyd writes: “Once
again he had to correct the set [English] text in class, and he knew just enough
German to ascertain, with Véra’s help, where the English diverged from Kafka”
(‘VNAY’ p.196).
Frankly, to me all theories that Nabokov’s knowledge of German was much
better than he ever admitted in the end serve to disparage his work, to lessen
its originality. I think them unwarranted.
Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
May 6, 2013 - 10am
Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2013 2:24 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Did VN know German? and a library is
announced
Perhaps there are other cats in
VN besides Hodges (there's the intriguing cat with celadon eyes that spurns
milk in RLSK) Some who understand human language and act as spies all
over the house retelling gossip for example, written by ???
Dear
Jansy,
Beside's
Johnson's real cat Hodge (no s), there is that very odd cat that is left for
Kinbote to look after, so odd that I doubt he even exists in the 'real' world of
New Wye. He is to be fed so many sardines every other day and to drink nothing
but looking glass milk, which Martin Gardner has interesting things to say about
- it would seem that Lewis Carroll foresaw modern, nay even post-modern physics.
Why not? (Wye knot, indeed).
The way he, Kinbote, strokes the pussy
cat makes me think he is 'actually' in Kinbote World caressing Fleur de Fyler,
who in 'real' New Wye is a pseudonym for the young girl who is planted on poor
innocent young John Shade on his birthday - so frustrating that I can't recall
and no one will help in finding which birthday it was. The birthday that gave
birth to Charles Kinbote, Shade's younger brother.
In
my reading Aunt Maud and the Countess de Fyler are one and the same. The one
lives in New Wye and drives a sporty car and has young girlfriends, the other
lives rawther stodgily in Zembla. There may be proof that they are the same
basic person, in that they die on the same day, that's what I wrote to the List
once at any rate. Sylvia and Sybil (note similarity of the names) are of course
both married to John Shade.
From: Carolyn Kunin
<chaiselongue@att.net>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
<NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 9:20:11
AM
Subject: Did VN know German?
and a library is announced
Haphazard trouvailles
seem to be piling up to validate my suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman
reader at some time.
Dear
Jansy,
I too have
been a cat person in the past - but these days it's all dogs and horses. You
suspect N of being a secret admirer of Hoffmann, and I suspect his German was
much better than he let on. Why? Keine Ahnung. No, actually I am sure that he
read Goethe in the original and Hoffmann, too,. I do believe that the "von
Lichberg" Lolita was probably read by VN in Berlin in '23 when it came
out. The German is very simple. I only have high school German and I could read
it easily.
I love the
"burst appendix" in your attic. I too have books coming out of the seams - but,
I am proud to announce that Westminster Cottage (where I live now) is
being transformed into a Library which will become part of the UC library system
after my passing on. After I die - why not say it. By the end of the summer, the
transformation will be complete and WC (oh dear) will be ready to admit readers.
Some of you may be aware that my alma mater, UCLA, owns a very beautiful and
important library in the West Adams district (close to USC, as it happens), a
sort of mimiatura version of the Huntington Library, the William Andrews
Clark Memorial Library, which is the repository of the largest and most
important collection of Oscar Wildeana in the world. "Westminster Cottage" will
be a branch library, so to speak, of the Clark.
The first tenant of my house (he
rented) was Ralph Freud - no relation to Jansy's Freud, so far as I know (and
it's pronounced frood), one of the founders of the Pasadena Play House
and the founder of the theater arts department at UCLA. Most of my book
collecting was in the area of modern illustrated books and fine bindings, music,
dance and Russian literature of course. But I am now collecting in the area of
theater as well. My most prized acquisition is a 1705 printing of Shakespeare
plays - the first illustrated Shakespear (that's how it's spelled) ever
published. The texts of the plays are considerably shorter than in the more
famous First Folios, and I suspect that they are closer to the actual text of
the plays as they were performed at that time, and Shakespear's of
course.
Forgive my rambling on - but I
am really proud of myself in this regard. When the library is ready, I will
invite the List members to visit, so I hope you all will forgive my prolixity
this morning. And now it's back to KP!
From: Jansy
<jansy@AETERN.US>
To:
NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sat, May 4, 2013 8:56:59
AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L]
Kater Murr
C. Kunin: Murli-kat'! (to purr in
Russian, n'est-ce-pas?). Well, I don't know if E T A Hoffmann (one n or two?)
knew Russian or not, but his pussy is indeed a learned Tom -- and not
unNabokovian, you may agree - perhaps even a bit Pale Fireish: The Life And
Opinions Of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of
Kappelmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper is a complex
satirical novel by Prussian Romantic-era author E.T.A. Hoffmann. It was first
published in 1819-1821 as Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst
fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen
Makulaturblättern, in two volumes. A planned third volume was never completed.
It was Hoffmann's final novel and is considered his masterpiece. It reflected
his concepts of aesthetics, and predated post-modern literary techniques in its
unusual structure. Critic Alex Ross writes of the novel, "If the phantasmagoric
'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young Brooklyn hipster, it
might be hailed as a tour de force of postmodern fiction."
Jansy Mello: What a find, Carolyn. It
seems to anticipate Kinbote's muddling of Zembla and Shade's life in New
Wye. I had already posted something about certain similarities and
references in the VN-L concerning "Hoffmann's short story 'My Cousin's Corner
Window' [ in Berlin, that] is the dominant feature of a "small room with a
low ceiling, high above the street" "That is the usual custom of writers and
poets," writes Hoffmann. "What does the low ceiling matter? Imagination soars
aloft and builds a high and cheerful dome that rises to the radiant blue
sky.".and, recently, about the doll Olympia and the Sandman (from Freud's
article on the "Uncanny"). Haphazard trouvailles seem to be piling up
to validate my suspicion that Nabokov was a Hoffman reader at some
time.
Since I used to be a cat-person (now there's Stark in
my life, a devilish black shipperke dog) and collected many stories about them,
I'll start to read a forgotten collection of ."Feline Fairy Tales" [ The King of
the Cats and other... edited by John Richard Stephens, Faber and Faber]
following your original push.I wish I could remember the plot of a cat one in
Karel Kapek's (or find his book "Nine Fairy Tales and one thrown in for good
measure" that's lost in "the burst appendix" of my attic).
Perhaps there are other cats in VN besides Hodges
(there's the intriguing cat with celadon eyes that spurns milk in RLSK)
Some who understand human language and act as spies all over the house retelling
gossip for example, written by ???
All private editorial
communications are read by both co-editors.
All private
editorial communications are read by both co-editors.