If Andrew Field’s files are at the Berg perhaps his original transcription of the tapes might be there, too. It makes
sense to me to suppose A.Field had the tapes transcribed at that time before he set to work on them. Lots of off the cuff material just lying in wait?
Let’s hope so.
Option c would have been my first guess, merely because I hadn't had occasion to consult Field for about a quarter-century and because Nabokov knew that a biography could be an important part of his after-image and he didn’t want his casual
(and therefore to his taste eminently revisable) reminiscences to be immortalised there. But I had forgotten Field,
Life in Art, p. 11, where Field writes “On occasion I used a recording machine, most often not.” VN’s own response at this point in Field’s typescript was to change to: “On occasion—three or four times, perhaps.”
As Germany’s Mr Nabokovian, Dieter E. Zimmer, often warned readers in
Die Zeit, electronic media are far from durable. Whether 45-year-old tapes recorded before good noise-reduction mechanisms had been commericalized would now yield transcribable dialogue I don’t know. I recall Field suffering flood damage to his archive
at some point.
Brian Boyd
Dear Brian,
If there are no tapes, that implies that
a. they were erased, or
b. they were lost or disposed of, or
c. they never existed to begin with.
Is there any information on any of these options?
Thanks much, Fran
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 05:10:51 +0000
From: b.boyd@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Andrew Field's Archive
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
As far as I know, there are no tapes. There’s a written biographical interview; Nabokov was even less inclined to speak off the cuff, to have his causal words set down in permanent form, when he was talking about his past, his county, his family.
Brian Boyd
Some of Field's stuff is at the Berg, at the NYPL. I'd be very curious to know what happened to the tapes.
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 22:31:57 -0600
From: franassa@HOTMAIL.COM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Andrew Field's Archive
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Dear List,
I'm wondering if anyone knows of the location of Andrew Field's Nabokov materials that were auctioned some time ago. Does anyone know whether the materials contained the tapes of Field's interviews with Nabokov?
Thank you very much! Fran Assa
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.