Now there's a linguistically interesting writer.
Grew up in an upper-class Russian family where of course much French was
spoken. Also had an English-speaking nanny.

"The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and
Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first
English book his mother read to him was Misunderstood (1869) by Florence
Montgomery. Much to his patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could
read and write in English before he could in Russian."

Every time Nabokov comes up, I want to refer to an exchange between him
and the critic Edmund Wilson that I read long ago, in which N amusingly
shows up the irreducible subjectivity of people's judgments about the
"character" or "quality" of different languages.
Trouble is I can't find it any more. I've tried.

(...) it's late. Maybe somebody else will have some thoughts.

On 2024-04-22 11:42:42 +0000, Ross Clark said:

> Now there's a linguistically interesting writer.
> Grew up in an upper-class Russian family where of course much French
> was spoken. Also had an English-speaking nanny.
>
> "The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and
> Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first
> English book his mother read to him was Misunderstood (1869) by
> Florence Montgomery. Much to his patriotic father's disappointment,
> Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in Russian."

My youngest daughter could read and write in Spanish before she could
in English, but I wasn't disappointed, and English and French weren't
far behind. After all, Spanish spelling is much easier than English (or
French).
>
> Every time Nabokov comes up, I want to refer to an exchange between him
> and the critic Edmund Wilson that I read long ago,

Likewise.

> in which N amusingly shows up the irreducible subjectivity of people's
> judgments about the "character" or "quality" of different languages.
> Trouble is I can't find it any more. I've tried.

Likewise. There are lots of articles _about_ the letters on the web,
but not the letters themselves.
>
> (...) it's late. Maybe somebody else will have some thoughts.

--
Athel cb

Ar an dara lá is fiche de mí Aibreán, scríobh Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> Likewise. There are lots of articles _about_ the letters on the web, but not
> the letters themselves.

Their correspondence has been published, looking at Google Books, it’s likely a
small matter of money to get at them. Still under copyright.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

interesting that VN was born on 4-22 and Conan Doyle was born on 5-22. (and Joyce on 2-2)

>>> .......... an exchange between him and the critic Edmund Wilson that I read long ago, in which Nabokov amusingly shows up the irreducible subjectivity of people's judgments about the "character" or "quality" of different languages. <<<

----- do you remember Anything else? (about what he said?)



--------------- is this in a letter by VN ?
i have the (paper) book of Nabokov-Wilson letters. (i'll look into it.)



“Nabokov wrote about the difficulties of rebirth in his letters as about agony”, - the writer Viktor Yerofeev notes in the preface to the first of four volumes of the collected works published in the homeland in the Soviet Union. "He experienced an almost physiological torment, parting with his flexible native language”.

Vladimir Nabokov, who lived on this occasion, said: “I am an American writer, born in Russia, educated in England, where I studied French literature before moving to Germany for fifteen years. ...My head speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear speaks French”.


------------- He actually spoke German very well -- he read Freud in German.