WEBVTT - 2: Volodya Takes America 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.360 Trigger warning. This podcast is about the book Lolita and 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:11.000 discusses themes of pedophilia. Listener discretion is advised. December sixth, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:15.480 nineteen fifty three, finished Lolita, which was begun exactly five 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.079 years ago. Vladimir Nabukov wrote to a friend that he 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.880 had finished Lolita, a novel he had been working on 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.600 for five years and when he was certain would be 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.360 even more challenging to publish than it was to write. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.200 The book detailed the memoir of European pedophile Humbert. Humbert Hu, 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.840 Nabukov referred to in later interviews as quote, a vain 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.760 and cruel wretch who manages to appear touching and Dolores 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.599 Lolita Hayes, a twelve year old American girl. He becomes 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.199 obsessed with, abducts and rapes hundreds of times over the 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.639 course of several years. The novel takes the perspective of Humbert, 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.800 who is trying to convince you, the reader and his jury, 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.720 that this is a love story. Nabokov would later say 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.000 that the humbrid character was inspired by an ape who 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.560 learned to draw. Nabokov says this the initial shiver of 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.920 inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.800 ape in the Jardin de Plance, who, after months of 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.240 coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing every charcoal 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.039 by an animal. This sketch showed the bars of the 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:20.400 poor creature's cage. Nabokov constructed Humbard's drawing of his own 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.440 cage on index cards in the summers between teaching at 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.760 Cornell University. He right in the back seat of the 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.680 car after long days of his wife Vera, driving them 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.160 from the east to west coast of the United States, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.000 stopping in motels that Nabokov used as inspiration on where 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.560 Humbert brings Lalita after kidnapping her, trailing the quote sinuous 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.360 trail of slime unquote, as Nabokov describes. A legend has 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.760 it that Vera once caught him trying to destroy the 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.919 manuscript and stopped him right in time. Not to mention, 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.000 this wasn't even the first time he'd attempted to write 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.559 about this theme or destroyed that attempt. Nabokov had written 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.360 a novella called The Enchanter while living in the Russian 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:02.880 emigrant community in Berlin nine very similar storyline, but Nabulkov 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.440 destroys all copies of the story he thinks, before it's 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.320 ever published. But now it's the end of ninety three 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.240 and the Bookov's work is complete. He wants to publish 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.000 it under a pseudonym. At first, worried that the themes 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.320 of the book would lose him his teaching job at Cornell, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.639 whose income he was still very dependent on at this time, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.639 but he's advised that this would make it even less 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.640 likely that Lolita would be published at all, and in fact, 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:28.880 could be used to make him look guilty in a 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.600 court of law if things went that far. Because this 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.520 is still towards the end of the McCarthy era in 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.320 the US, Nabokov wasn't the untouchable writer he's regarded as 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.799 today at this time. In fact, Lolita's success would turn 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.480 him into that. And it's not like there's no established 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.960 precedent for books landing authors and publishers in court, no 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.399 matter how well regarded the work is. James Joyce's Ulysses 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.000 ran into censorship issues back in the twenties during its 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.080 pre publication serialization in the US, leading to the United 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.480 States Versus One book called Ulysses case of three very 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.400 dramatic case name. The book went out, but not before 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.040 a lot of money was spent on both sides, and 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:13.040 similar situations had befallen erotic novel Forever Amber by Kathleen Windsor, 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.480 as well as to Nabokov's friend, American writer Edmund Wilson's 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.639 Memoirs of Heckate County in the fifties. All of these 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.639 books end up prevailing in the courts, but the process 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.040 was arduous and expensive on publishers, and many didn't want 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.960 to take the financial and reputational risk, even on a 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.320 writer they really liked. So Lolita is sent to American publishers, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.000 to Viking, to Simon and Schuster, to New Directions Double Day, 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.160 and it's a resounding now across the board. Simon and 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.480 Schuster says it's sheer pornography. Nabokov writes to his longtime 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.520 editor Katherine White at The New Yorker, who also has 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.920 rejected Lowlit to at this point, saying the following, I 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.880 had to write that book for artistic reasons, and I 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.680 don't really care much what happens to it next. But 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.720 it turns out he does care because then it's on 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.680 to the British publishers, but still no luck. In early 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.000 nineteen fifty five, still searching, he writes this to Edmund Wilson, 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.000 I suppose it will be published by some shady firm 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.760 with a Viennese dream name e g. Silo, And in 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.360 April nineteen fifty five it reaches Olympia Press in Paris, 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.480 run by Mario Gerodius. Olympia was famous for two things, 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.359 publishing controversial scraps by famous writers like Miller, Beckett and 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:31.320 Boroughs that they couldn't release elsewhere, and erotica porn book porn. 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.520 It was book porn, and Gerodius accepted the title of Mr. 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.839 Book porn with quote joy and pride end quote, and hey, 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.680 there's nothing wrong with a little bit of book porn. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.719 That's not how I would classify Lolita the book at all, 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.040 but the genre of erotica itself. I mean, who cares. 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.200 I'll tell you who cares. It's Vladimir Nabokov. Reflecting on 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.000 this time later, he says this, I had not been 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.719 in Europe since nineteen forty, was not interested in pointo 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.760 graphic books, and thus knew nothing about the obscene novelettes, 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.360 would Mr Gerodius was hiring hacks to confect with assistants. 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.560 I have pondered the painful question whether I would have 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.640 agreed so cheerfully to his publishing Lolita had I been 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.520 a wearer in May nineteen fifty five of what formed 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.400 the supple backbone of his production. Alas, I probably would 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.359 the less cheerfully. And he's right. Gerodius, in spite of 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.960 giving Lolita the first of its many breaks that would 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.600 turn it into a classic, did not get it and 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.320 was quoted as saying it quote might bring about a 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.440 change in social attitudes towards the kind of love described unquote, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.919 which was, as you know, definitely not the point of 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.640 the book. To put it generously, The book of American 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.440 academic friends advise him not to publish, thinking it will 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.960 damage his reputation. There's a little bit of drama with 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.679 copyright between the author and Olympia, and in September nineteen 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.880 fifty five, Lolita's first edition is published and everyone loves it. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.599 No notes the end, just kidding. This is Lolita Podcast. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.040 Welcome back. I'm Jamie Loftus. Nice to paras socially interact 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.680 with you again. Here on Lolita Podcast. Last week in 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.440 our first episode, we talked about some of the current 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.479 prevalent schools of thought on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and took 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.160 an in depth look at the events of the book itself, 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.640 because there's no use in knowing what happens in the 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.839 adaptations if you don't know what you're comparing it against. 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.120 And it goes without saying that. We have a lot 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.200 to talk about. But today we're going to take it 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.360 back in time a little bit to talk about nabokof 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.480 to talk to several of the scholars in the Nabokov community, 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.239 to talk about some of the finer points of the book, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.040 and to trace the journey of the book's first publication 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.800 in nineteen fifty five, through the long battle of Lolita 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.200 as a band book, all the way up to the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.680 first film adaptation attempt in the early nineteen sixties. Brian Boyd, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.120 who has written the definitive two volume of Nabokov biography 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.320 that I've been using, and we're also going to be 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.720 talking to Brian in this episode as well. So, my friends, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.520 the time has come to ask who is Vladimir Nabokov. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.640 He is born on April twenty second, eighteen ninety nine 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.160 in St. Petersburg to a very wealthy Russian noble family. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.200 But his family does require some explaining, so we're going 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.240 to take it back a little bit before that. Nabokov's grandfather, 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.040 Dmitri Nabokov is high up in the pre revolutionary government. 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.440 He's the Minister of Justice under the liberal Ish Czar's 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.480 Alexander's two and three. He is a bureaucratic liberal. But 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.480 even this was enough to get labeled as a radical 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.840 every once in a while. Think of how people called 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.440 Joe Biden a radical when he was running, and it's like, honey, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.720 I wish uh sorry for getting political. Moving on, Dmitri 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.080 is considered radical for saying wild things like there should 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.320 be fair trials for all. His writer grandson would actually 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.880 continue this line of thought later in his life, saying 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.840 that he pitied both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald after 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.120 watching media coverage of the president's assassination in the US 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.760 in the nineteen sixties. Dmitri Nabokov is prominent in pre 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.840 revolutionary Russia and then a buck Offs have a number 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.160 of brushes, but literary fame before the famous novelist in 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.240 the family is born. Dmitri encounters writer and founder of 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:47.480 socialist realism Nikolai Schernishevski, who under Alexander was intimidated by 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.440 being mock executed but then told just kidding, You're not 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.720 being executed, but get out, and then he was exiled. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.680 And there's a bunch of this in pre revolutionary Russia. Anyways, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.480 Dmitri has an affair with an older woman and then 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.480 marries her daughter to keep things above board. And the 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.559 woman he marries is Vladimir Nabokov's grandmother, but she's also 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.760 Vladimir Nabokov's mother because Vladimir Nabokov and his father have 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.720 the exact same name, which becomes messy for the author 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.360 and for me right now. So to differentiate, I am 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.280 going to call the father of Lowlit to author Vladimir Nabakov, 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.880 Daddy Vlad to make things easier, thank you. That is 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.559 a very elegant solution. I was in mensa, so Daddy 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.160 Vlad pretty cool guy born in eighteen seventy. His politics 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.840 are pretty far to the left of his father, Dmitri. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.120 He's arrested as a student protester he was outspoken against 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.000 anti Semitism and went on to be a successful defender 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.599 of Russian Jews. During his legal career. He also defended 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:52.960 queer people, ex convicts, and political insurgents from legal oppression. Overall, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.480 I would have dated him, but he was still from 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.000 a bougie family, and he marries accordingly. Daddy Vlad marries 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:03.400 Elena rukov Shnakova, daughter of landowners so rich her dad 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.800 opened a school for only his kids. Elena is very 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:11.160 intelligent and is educated in the natural sciences. They're married 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.680 and have five kids, the oldest of whom is Vladimir Nabokov, 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.600 or Volodia as he's known as a kid. Daddy Vlad 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.720 starts working as an editor at Provo, a left leaning journal, 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.520 and Volodia is pretty uninterested in politics as a young person. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.760 He has another brush with literary fame. A young Volodia 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.520 and Daddy Vlad meat writer Leo Tolstoy, Hello in passing 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.680 when Volodia is only ten, and here I'll be honest, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.000 Vladimir Nabokov sounds like an absolute braddy rich kid while 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.400 he's growing up, and Nabokov scholars will defend this, but Yeah, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.680 he's very bright, but he seems like kind of a jerk. 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.960 He had like valet Is driving him to school. It's 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.000 not for me. Very spoiled by his parents, Volodia had 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.079 nanny's and private tutors and literally teethed on his mother's 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.120 jewels growing up. For reference, he's about the same age 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.520 as the Romanov Children's Anastasia to all those so he 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.800 wasn't royalty, but that same time and that same vibe 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.240 like teething on jewels, A cocky, rich kid. Nabokov speaks Russian, 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.120 English and French from a young age, and later says 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.920 this of himself in his autobiography, speak memory. I think 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.959 I was born like that. A precocious genius and humble too. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.080 Volodia is also diagnosed with synesthesia as a kid, a 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.520 condition where letters and numbers are associated with colors, and 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.760 that's something that his eventual wife, Vera will share Daddy. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.360 Vlad is elected into the first Duma Council in nineteen 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.319 o six, but then is sent to prison and solitary 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.440 confinement in nineteen o eight for his association with the 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.520 Provo Journal. He comes back find but Volodia remembers this 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.520 time very clearly. Nabokov has four younger siblings, one of 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.520 whom is a childhood friend to iron Rand, which I 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.800 don't want to talk about at all, and one of 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.199 which is his brother Sergei, which I do as Volodia 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.520 does something both pretty unforgivable and very of his time 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.559 and outs his brother as a gay man to their parents, 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.040 which results in Sergey's being sent away to a boarding school. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.800 The relationship doesn't completely heal for some time, and Sergey, 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.760 after many happy years with his lover, dies in a 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.920 concentration camp in nineteen forty five after speaking out against Hitler. 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.360 Back in nineteen sixteen, Volodia falls in love with a 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.240 girl named Valentina, who later dumps him. He self publishes 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.400 a poetry collection as a teen Emo king, then inherits 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.120 two million pounds in nineteen seventeen, money from his uncle, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.800 who Brian Boyd mentions in his biography of Nabokov molested 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.400 him as a child. One of his experiences seems to 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.880 be replicated in pretty close detail later in Lolita, in 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.000 a scene where Humbert Humbert bounces Dolores on his lap 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:53.240 in order to pleasure himself. In nineteen seventeen, the February 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.800 Revolution happens in Russia and Daddy Vlad is made secretary 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.400 to the provisional government, but is forced to flee with 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:03.120 the family when the Bolshevik Revolution starts. He then serves 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.920 as the Minister of Justice in nineteen eighteen in the 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.439 Crimean regional government, and the Nabokov family finally settles in Berlin, 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.760 Germany permanently in nineteen nineteen, and at this point they 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.360 are entirely stripped of their court titles and all of 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.120 their money, and in fact, a necklace of pearls that 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:26.000 Nabokov Tethon as a baby are sold so they can 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.120 make rent in Germany. This is a huge shift in 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.840 Nabokov's life. He goes on to attend Cambridge University in 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.240 England with his brother Sergei, while Daddy Flad begins editing 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.960 Russian immigrant newspaper rule Back in Berlin, Nabokov begins publishing 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.120 poetry in his dad's paper, so no nepotism there, and 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.720 he uses a pen name, Vladimir Syrian, which is a 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.040 pseudonym meant to distance him and prevent confusion with his 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.280 dad in a way that kind of evokes Nick Cage's 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.160 relationship to the Coppola's for me, like he just kind 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.000 of got rid of the name and hopes that no 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.360 one would notice. I get it. You don't want to 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.440 seem like nepotism, but like you are, and we know 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.600 that anyways. Like Nick Cage, this ends up being kind 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.600 of a wash because Syrian is a legitimately talented writer 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:16.360 and becomes popular locally. Then in Daddy Vlad is suddenly murdered, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.600 completely altering the direction of the family's life. He attends 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.880 a former colleagues speaking engagement in the hope of repairing 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.640 their lapsed friendship. A gunman shoots at the speaker. Daddy 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.320 Vlad tries to interfere, and he's hit and killed. Nabokov's 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.280 journals from this night are devastating. What has happened? Tell 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.360 me what's happened, she asks, Seizing him by the sleeves, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.040 he spreads out his hands, something terrible. He sobs, cannot finish, 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.000 so it's all over, He says nothing. Hessen too says nothing. 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.920 Their teeth chatter, their eyes dart a lot, and mother understood. 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.400 I thought she would faint. So that's it, she repeated, quietly. 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.360 She seemed to reason it out with herself, how can 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:01.720 it be? And then, lad do you understand? In ninety three, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.040 Nabokov meets his future wife Vera, a Russian Jew from 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.800 the upper class who I absolutely love, and there's a 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.200 very beautiful biography written about her by Stacy Schiff that 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.240 I highly recommend. They're married in nine in Berlin, and 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.880 Nabokov as Syrian, continues to write again, occasionally benefiting from 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:24.320 nepotism due to the tragically killed daddy Vlatt. Now firmly 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.800 a member of the middle class, he begins working to 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.960 support the family and speaking to his early work, I 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.480 think this is really interesting and encouraging for those of 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.080 us that are also writers in our twenties. A lot 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:39.560 of his early stories are just okay. As he continues 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.440 to thrive in the emigrade writing communities, he writes stories 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.840 like the Potato Elf. He was not a great writer immediately, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.680 which I find to be cool and realistic and comforting 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.360 and never is really discussed about the great writer canon. 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.480 Vladimir and Vera were very active in the Russian emigrane community. 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.120 They tutored and did setitary work, respectively to make ends 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.240 meet while they were living there. They end up living 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.960 in Berlin for twenty years, and Vladimir publishes early novels, 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.920 including ones that I really like, like The Defense and 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.360 The Gift, but he never really likes Germany and only 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.760 has a basic grasp on the language. In nineteen thirty six, 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.520 when their son Dmitri is only two years old, Vera 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.360 loses her job because of the increasing anti Semitism in Berlin. 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.280 And that same year, and I still cannot wrap my 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.080 head around this, but that same year, the man who 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:34.520 had murdered Daddy, vlad In, is promoted to be second 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.640 in command of the Russian emigrade group in Berlin, and 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.160 so the Nabokov's get the funk out of there. They 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.880 then spent some time in Paris, where Nabokov has a 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.080 brief affair. Vera finds out it ends, although there's enough 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.440 drama in there alone for a decent indie movie. He 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.960 writes his first English language novel, and mere weeks before 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.880 the Germans bomb Paris, Vladimir, Vira and Dmitri managed to 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.320 get to the US. To get there, they have half 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.280 of their ticket paid for by a Jewish rescue organization 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.920 that was arranged due to all of the great work 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.199 that Daddy Flatt had done back in the day, and 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.960 they crowdfund the rest from their rich friends. And in 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.640 nineteen forty they get to New York and I mean, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.560 it's all a pretty amazing story. They get to the US, 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.880 and Nibulkov loves it. They're vowing to become, for all 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.680 intents and purposes, a fully American writer, although he remains 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.160 extremely nostalgic for Russia, both in memory and in language. 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.720 For the rest of his career, he volunteers at the 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:35.320 American Museum of Natural History and expands his studies on lepidoptery. 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:37.440 And this is a good point to mention that Nabokov 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.120 was also a full on butterfly scientist. That's what lepidoptery is, 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.080 stemming from a boyhood interest and ultimately taking up quite 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.400 a bit of his time in the nineteen forties while 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.520 teaching classes in Russian and literature at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.560 He also worked as the curator of lepidoptery at Harvard 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.080 University and ultimately contributed work to that field that remains 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.199 relevant today. Wild Stuff. In nine he first has the 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.199 idea for Lolita although at this time he calls the 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.720 book The Kingdom by the Sea, referencing Poe, and Lolita 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:13.040 is called Juanita Dark. Sure, he gains a reputation as 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.560 an American writer, publishing story after story with The New Yorker. 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.200 He starts teaching at Cornell in Upstate New York in 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:24.000 ninety eight, and Lolita comes out in nineteen and this 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:29.520 changes his life forever. So once Lolita comes out and 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.440 all of this publication stuff is settled, the bulk off 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.160 was left with the impressions of the public. And oh 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:44.160 did the public respond. Lolita blazes, however, with a perversity 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:50.000 of a most original kind. A fine book, a distinguished book, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.760 all right, then a great book without a doubt. It 0:18:55.040 --> 0:19:01.320 is the fifthiest book I've ever read share unrestrained pornography. 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.720 The first is that it is dull, dull, dull in 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:12.280 a pretentious, florid and archly fatuous fashion. The second is 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:17.800 that it is repulsive. What makes the book flame, I think, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.800 is first of all, a love affair with the real 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:26.840 America three d pages of sex in the head. The 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.120 first time I read Lolita, I thought it was one 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.560 of the funniest books I'd ever come on. The second 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.120 time I read it uncut, I thought it was one 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.560 of the saddest humbert is all of us. Lolita is 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:53.119 undeniably news, unfortunately bad news, highbrow pornography. Thank you so 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.760 much to my friends for some truly career defining performances. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:01.000 They're good stuff. So Lolita is public in Paris and 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.359 early win is when well regarded English critic Graham Green 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.159 declares Lolita as one of his favorite books of nineteen 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.840 fifty five, which gets people curious. And then it's a 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.280 year's long battle for Lolita to see the light of 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.800 day in the United States and in England. There's hushed 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.160 talks of potential court cases, constantly changing obscenity laws, faulty 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:25.159 translations into foreign languages, people literally smuggling Olympia Press copies 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.800 in their suitcases overseas, then having Lolita seized in customs. 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.000 It was a big dramatic thing. Eventually, once the hype 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.600 grew big enough in the US, the same publishers that 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.240 were once turning the bulk off away were now banging 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.480 down his door trying to get the publishing rights to 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.880 the book. So all in all, Lolita was banned as 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.800 obscene in France from nineteen fifty six to nineteen fifty nine, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.520 even though that was the country where it was first published. 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.600 Like with that math, it was banned in England from 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.800 nineteen fifty five to fifty nine, Argentina in nineteen fifty nine, 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:00.880 and in New Zealand in nineteen sixty. And it wasn't 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:05.280 even unbanned in South Africa until two for God's sake, 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.879 But in nineteen fifty nine what Nabukov has been waiting 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.399 for happens. Not only is his book finally published in 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.160 the US four years later by Walter Minton at Putnam's, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.359 it's a massive hit, staying on the bestseller lists for 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:23.119 months and selling a hundred thousand copies in its first 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:28.000 three weeks. Quick fund sidebar an American show girl named 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.399 Rosemary Ridgwell was the one to get Lolita published. She 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.560 was an avid reader and aspiring opera singer who was 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.719 actually having an affair with the Putnam publisher, Walter Minton, 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.919 and she ends up getting credit for this after some negotiating. 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.960 She makes twenty two thousand dollars in nineteen sixties money 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.560 for her trouble. That's a hundred ninety thousand dollars today, 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:55.040 Go Rosemary. But in the US, Lda never gets a 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.640 formal blanket ban. And in nineteen fifty nine, not only 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.640 is his book finally public in the US four years later, 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.200 it's a massive hit and it stays on the best 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:08.040 seller list for months. Once Lolita is published in the States. 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.960 For your scorecard, about one out of every three reviews 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.159 is bad. The other two were good. And while it 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.000 is true that certain American public libraries banned Lolita from 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.960 their shelves, nothing lasted, and the public learning of these 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.359 bands usually just served to increase the book sales again, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.600 And that's the story of most banned books. And what 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.760 I think is most noteworthy here is that America ended 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.560 up becoming perhaps more receptive to Lolita than almost any 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.080 other country, which Nabokov was thrilled about. But what he 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.040 couldn't have known is that America was going to take 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.880 this story wildly out of context for decades to come. 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:48.040 I'm talking a parents sending their daughter and a Lolita 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.320 constom to Nabulkov's door. Weird, And to get a little 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:53.960 more into Nabokov's head at this point in his career, 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:56.879 I was lucky enough to speak to Dana Dragonoyu, an 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:00.560 associate professor of English at Carlton University and Ottawa and 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.879 a noted Nabokovian. And that's what scholars who specialize in 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:06.760 the bulk of are called. They're like twi Hearts or 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:10.040 the BTS Army, but they're adults and probably ones who 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.240 would resent that comparison. They are the bulk of super 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.720 fans with credentials. She's written Vladimir Nabukof and the Poetics 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.520 of Liberalism, Lolita, Law, ethics and politics and more, and 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.159 she's genuinely the coolest. So here's a little bit of 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:29.200 our discussion. So he's writing Lolita, just in the little 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:33.760 interlude between other big projects, and then as she's writing it, 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:36.159 he knows that he's got a ticking time bomb on 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:38.919 his hands. He knows that, um, he's putting all of 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:42.520 this time into this novel that might actually never be published. 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:46.280 Edmund Wilson actually hates it. He thinks it's not a 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:53.880 great book. Um, Catherine White doesn't want to doesn't want 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:56.679 to cut it. Yeah, so um, he sends it to 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:59.920 a few publishers and they all say that they can't 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.480 under risk of landing in jail themselves or having their 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:08.840 UM their publication houses prosecuted. And so then it comes 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:13.359