Nabokov and his copy

The main thing that is connected in the minds of the Russian reader with Dmitry Nabokov is, of course, a long -term, dramatic and strange story with the publication of Laura's drafts. Neither his translations of paternal novels, nor general literary and led activities of DM. Nabokov is not known so widely and do not cause so much debate and accusations. Let me remind you briefly: in 1975-1977, the writer works on a new novel. In the will, he asks to destroy 138 library cards on which he is used to writing. The widow Vera Nabokova does not dare to do this, puts the manuscript in the cell of the Swiss bank and in 1991 shortly before his death passes the right to dispose of the “Laura” to the son of Dmitry. For almost 20 years, he will scare the audience, which will destroy, but on November 17, 2009, the book still falls on the shelves.

It is not good to reproach the recently deceased person for something, but this “reproach” is not human, private, but a socio-literary character: Dmitry Nabokov deprived us of great secrets, revealed one of the main cultural mysties of the 20th century. It used to be thought that the art genius of Nabokov at the end of his life developed so powerfully that the text he had begun was not ready to see humanity, how it is not ready, for example, to meet an alien life or to find out how life on Earth arose. The shock will be too great. It is clear that this thought is stupid, the thought of a fan of a literary master, but how beautiful and sad it would be if Dmitry Vladimirovich really destroyed the manuscript. There is a great secret. But instead of secret and miracle, we received several slurred, standing on the threshold of an ordinary nonsense of scraps, moreover, in a very strange translation, which should be said separately.

Gennady Barabtarlo, a well-known American researcher and translator Nabokov, translated Laura in his meticulous “pre-revolutionary reconstrued” style, filling the text of such a monstrous density of the White Guard, through which it is just as difficult as through the cordon of the Kolchak army, which is becoming embarrassing, as it is a shame for the awkwardness made by others, alien to your person. Perhaps in the case of Barattarlo this is a position and chivalry, but the chivalry of the plan that happens in the reconstructions of historical, when adult bearded men gather and begin to seriously wave their swords, depicting the Battle of Borodino. Original, but awkward and funny.

Another famous expert on Nabokov Vyacheslav Kuritsyn then published an evil and accurate parody of this translation:

“A year before hanging himself in the Apfelsin Grove, her badly smelling stepfather rose into the blue living room, leading a thick-and-character cat on a leash. He was, as it was used in the old days, a large Lorofil. His name was Sigmund G. Gumbrecht - the name is undoubtedly vile, and he did not rely on the Initzjal and his name at all. He flopped onto the sofa and froze, getting closer closer to the boiler and obviously having in the subject a slightly to the (to touch) it is lovely, the heel causing a heel, and maybe the femoral mosques, sniffing sniffing, and even if it succeeds, even the very very tickled darling darling. Poor Margaritka (Kolokol'chik) penetrated. The lad out of a dinder, changing her face complexion from the heliotropic to the verdomotive, from a pair to the pussy, from the gridepers to the Galleline, from vanilla to Merdua - and finally kicked the impudent kitty with the end of her sweet, sweet, mining, with a snow -white velvet rise in the part of the feet, legs. "

I will not quote the novel itself, so as not to take up space; Those who wish can easily find the text on the network and determine the degree of accuracy of the parody themselves. But what is worth at least this open hiatus of the name, a booming unnatural accumulation of vowels, which Nabokov would never allow himself - from them a feeling from a whistling draft in a holey tooth. Why does Barattarlo, translating the great Russian writer, do not want to speak Russian? .. The very fact of publication can be accepted without accusing Dmitry Nabokov; In the end, that someone wanted to have a secret there is all dreams and naivety. But the publication of the text with “Overchur” and “turned out”, when no one writes so for exactly a hundred years-this is at least disrespectful in relation to Nabokov himself, who naturally could not endure illiteracy and bad taste (“without”? Or “without-”?).

On the other hand, it is easy to blame the son of Nabokov, not representing the enormous responsibility that he had to take upon himself, becoming the heir and the owner of literary rights. The children of the great are generally a separate and complex topic; In order to live in the shadow of the great ancestor, not feeling infringed, not requiring special attention to himself personally in isolation from the parent - but it is impossible to demand this because of human limitation and tendency to think with stereotypes and see shortcuts, not facts - to live like this, you need to have a powerful sense of dignity, firmness and honesty. Dmitry Nabokov was a vivid example of such dignity, and will be compared with him in this firmness, perhaps the descendants of Leo Tolstoy, so loved by Nabokov himself. But here it is, human limitation: looking at the face of Vladimir Tolstoy, the grandson and director of the Yasnaya Polyana museum, for some reason, you don’t think about what hard work it is-to be such a director, to fight with the idiocy of bureaucracy from culture, to maintain a large and complex economy-and the thought is involuntarily carried away in the 19th century, and for some reason you imagine this cool forehead in the grandfather: after all, after all, after all, after all, in the form of your grandfather. He seems to have already begun “war and peace” at this age ... Dmitry Nabokov undoubtedly suffered greatly from this unfair narration of his eyes: something there was a race, but did he win where? Opera bass ... where, what did you sing? Translations: But what exactly did we read in the translation of Dmitry Vladimirovich? - Only Ilyin and the same Barabtarlo are heard. In the photographs of Vladimir Nabokov - power, cunning and cheerful stubbornness, and his son is almost always sad in his photos, thoughtful, pale. Although the face, it would seem, is the same.

I will say banality, but there is probably a special vocation, inaccessible to ordinary people, thinking labels: to be a descendant. Son, daughter, grandson, or friend - wife. To do this is not just a core of internal self -awareness, but to a profession, a matter of life in the simplest applied meaning: to translate, write, publish, ride. Dmitry Nabokov was this son by vocation.

It is known how much Vera Nabokova made for her husband during his life and after his death. But no less famous is another example of a fanatical devotion to her wife to her husband: Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya. Here she is, we can not doubt it, it would be like such a manuscript to destroy such a manuscript, because “Levochka bequeathed so,” she would write in a diary. And the hand would not tremble. But neither Vera nor Dmitry Nabokovs were destroyed, but they reasoned in their own way, because brilliant and strong people often have brilliant and strong relatives.

The world of their dust.