There's not a ton of new information in this book, but it's nice to have a variety of Nabokov interviews in one place especially when I need to do a bit of research for prepping a course or writing a paper.

Nabokov was such a fascinating man. His joy in literature for its own sake - not for a moral or other higher purpose - is palpable. These interviews make for such a delicious and eye-opening read.

This felt like a bunch of google searches turned into a book. I liked the interviews, but was expecting something entirely different from the description.

A collection of 28 interviews with and articles about Vladimir Nabokov, ranging from the 1950s to just after his death in 1977. Essential reading for all Nabokov enthusiasts and a useful, entertaining and illuminating volume.

If you love Nabokov (as I do), this book is an absolute must. If you care about literature at all, this book is a very strongly recommended read. If you just enjoy wit and intelligence, this is a book to read. Included are 28 interviews, from 1958-1977 with the Russian-born, English-writing author of many brilliant works, including Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, and Speak, Memory (his fascinating and compelling autobiography). The interviews were chosen by the book’s editor, Robert Golla.

The interviews cover a span of almost 20 years. Nabokov discusses critical reactions to his often controversial works as well as many other topics, including culture, literature, politics, and society in general. He also gives addition information about his life covering his privileged childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia, his life in Europe, and his immigration to the United States. It also includes an essay about probably his most powerful obsession (write next to writing): butterfly collecting. He is both deadly serious and delightfully amusing.

Nabokov’s comments are insightful and witty. They illuminate his works as well as the worlds he discusses: politics, literature, the world at large. They offer further insight into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most interesting and controversial writers. I believe Nabokov is a necessary writer to read, one of breathtaking style and intelligence.

I couldn’t put the book down. It is so rich and full of quotable words about all the different aspects of the world and his own life and art. I enjoyed it for its own sake but it awakened my desire to read again the master’s works.

My thanks to NetGalley, Robert Golla, the University Press of Mississippi, and, most of all, to the late Vladmir Nabokov, for the opportunity to read this exciting work.

http://www.russianartandculture.com/book-review-conversations-vladimir-nabokov/

BOOK REVIEW: CONVERSATIONS WITH VLADIMIR NABOKOV

POSTED 09/08/2017 11:10 AM

Book Cover for Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Robert Golla
Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.” (A tip from the family themselves is to pronounce it as ‘Na-BOAK-ov’, where ‘BOAK’ rhymes with smoke.) For those curious about Nabokov himself, Robert Golla’s collation of interviews by Nabokov in Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov serves as an ideal introduction to Nabokov.

The interviews included start from 1958, not long after the American edition of Lolita was published, and finish with an obituary of sorts published in 1977. Whilst the interviews chosen primarily centre on Lolita, his other works are briefly mentioned and the reader can also discover recurring themes that are important to Nabokov. For instance, we see Nabokov-as-lepidopterist several times and how he helped to challenge the classification system for cataloguing butterflies. There are even new anecdotes that even die-hard Nabokovians may not have heard before such as his son, Dmitri Nabokov, filling out his father’s occupation as a tennis coach in his school registration form.

Helpfully, Golla provides a succinct yet detailed chronology on Nabokov’s life and enables easy-referencing by listing the interviewer and year in the heading. Nabokovians may be wondering however, what Conversations adds to the enormity of Nabokov scholarship already present. After all, it seems that not a year can go by without a new book on Nabokov being published. This is particularly true given that Nabokov himself collated and provided commentary on his own interviews in Strong Opinions (1973). In terms of overlap, only three interviews in Strong Opinions are also present in Conversations, leaving 25 interviews that Golla describes as unpublished or untranscribed. Highlights of the collation include Boyle’s and Levy’s interviews. Thus, Conversations has its merits and is not published like Strong Opinions, merely to fulfil his contract with the American publisher McGraw-Hill for eleven books within 5 years.


Book Cover for Strong Opinions by Vladimir Nabokov
Importantly, there are a few problems with the interviews. The interviews themselves slightly overlap and contain inaccuracies (e.g. one interviewer describes Nabokov’s father as assassinated when another correctly observes that V.D. Nabokov died shielding the assassin’s true target). Golla himself provides no guiding footnotes or any indications of his editing. There are also problems for academics using this as source material. However, Conversations is ideal for those who are not ready to tackle Brian Boyd’s two-volume biography or ready to commit to Nabokov’s posthumous Lectures on Literature series published in three-volumes. Overall, Conversations is a good primer for those new to Nabokov but will be mostly familiar to specialists and confirm previous scholarship.

Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Robert Golla,

(USA: University of Missippi, 2017)

‘Conversations with Nabokov’ edited by Robert Golla consists of an introduction and 28 interviews, covering the period from the US publication of ‘Lolita’ in 1958, until Nabokov’s death in 1977, although his responses frequently refer to his life before ‘Lolita’ brought him international fame.

Many of the interviews have not appeared since they were first published, and several appear in print in this collection for the first time. An example is an interview with Robert Hughes for National Educational Television, dated 2 September 1965, which, we are told in the Introduction, went “unaired” and is “published here for the first time”.

In fact the ‘New York Times’ on 30 January 1966 published excerpts from this interview, which can be found online, where it is also stated that the program will be broadcast on Channel 13.

Comparing these excerpts published online with the version printed in this book raises serious questions about the editor’s competence as the online version appears to be not only better punctuated but more accurate in recording Nabokov’s actual words.

Thus Golla has Nabokov saying he cannot promise “to stare down another fifteen” years in Europe, whilst the online version has him stating that he cannot promise “to stay around” for that length of time. Gollo also has Nabokov opine that, “Everything is bedaze when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, Tagore, Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann were being accepted as geniuses …” whilst the online excerpt much more plausibly has him begin this sentence, “Ever since the days …”.

The interviews themselves are fascinating, dealing not just with Nabokov’s life and work but his strongly expressed opinions on a wide range of subjects. Nabokov intensely disliked extemporising, believing himself to be “not a good speaker”. He was also highly desirous of protecting his privacy and his image. Would-be interviewers would thus have to submit questions in advance, to which Nabokov would respond in writing. The quality of the interviews is thus on a par with the quality of his prose: masterly.

This book would thus undoubtedly merit five stars were it not for the problematic way in which at least some of the interviews appear to have been edited.