by Maria Popova
A heartening homage to the wives, mothers, brothers, benefactors, and other quiet champions behind some of history’s most lebrated geniuses.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/22/who-what-when-rothman-book/
Véra Nabokov, 1902–1991; art by Thomas Doyle
Many of these electrifying batteries of support spring from great romances.Paris Review contributor Lauren Acampora tells the story behind the love ofVladimir Nabokov‘s life, thickly entwined with his momentous contribution to the literary canon:
Their first meeting in 1923 was the stuff of legend: She wore a black satin mask on a bridge in Berlin and recited his own poetry to him. From that moment, the young writer Vladimir Nabokov felt that Véra Slonim was destined to share his life. In one of the passionate letters of their courtship, he wrote, “It’s as if in your soul there is a preprepared spot for every one of my thoughts.” For the next fifty-four years, he was nearly inseparable from the brilliant, elegant, and self-effacing woman who became Mrs. Nabokov.
Over the half-century that followed, Véra Nabokov dedicated her life to bolstering her husband’s genius, in which she believed resolutely and which she felt honored to nurture and protect — rumor even has it that she carried a handgun in her purse to protect her husband from assassination at his public appearances, which sounds decidedly less implausible given Véra learned to shoot an automatic weapon as a teenager and was allegedly involved in an assassination plot against a Soviet despot.
Acampora writes:
Among her many roles, Véra was amanuensis, translator, chief correspondent, teaching assistant, literary agent, chauffeur, Scrabble partner, and butterfly-catching companion. She was the first reader of all her husband’s works, as well as critic, editor, and inspiration. Many suspected she had a hand in the writing itself; some believed Véra was the true author.
Whether or not Véra authored any of the work will forever remain a matter of speculation, but she did save her husband’s magnum opus from destruction on several occasions when, exasperated by its narrow-minded reception, he attempted to burn Lolita. She was the first reader of all his work and his lifelong inspiration. The inscription on every single one of his novels reads, simply, “To Véra.” So intense was their psychic bond that they even shared the uncommon neurological condition synesthesia. When Nabokov’s obituary stated that “their dedication to each other was total,” it was a statement of simple fact rather than bombast.