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Pniniad: Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel

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Pniniad: Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel Pniniad -3- Sipaltmtnt - PeNoon.be.clerljLi"g :: fL~~ ;"i 1'Cln: dlol 1itu.:.a1ft .) lI.lItIIlu.,lnllt/t .In.1If<<kr .J Enr.nt KI"Jf!rt'n accompapnl 10 Iltulld~ • ." ".,., mlt~'"" ... - ., ....... AVIS IMPORTANT. - u Gou.,erntment 1k1rc o'intervicndra pas lb.nJ Ie. rntis de raratriemenl de ptrlOOntl SoC rend:'"t .. l'clranger. BELANGRlJK BERICIIT. - D< &IWCN Re· I"rf", lal dt kOJ/m \111'1 'tpatr/~trfng d(r ptrSOMn //l fill Itch IWlU kl bUiltMvuI bqtlY.n, nitt Irtlpnr motm. Marc Szeftel's Belgian passport, 1953 Pniniad Vladimir N abokov and Marc Szeftel GAL Y A DIMENT A McLellan Book University of Washington Press SEAT T LE A ND LONDON This book is published with the assistance of a grant from the McLellan Endowed Series Fund, established through the generosity of Martha McCleary McLellan and Mary McLellan Williams. Copyright ᭧ 1997 by the University of Washington Press 1st paperback edition, 2013 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Diment, Galya. Pniniad : Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel / Galya Diment. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-295-99286-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899–1977. Pnin. 2. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899–1977—Friends and associates. 3. Russian Americans—New York (State)—Ithaca—Biography. 4. College teachers— New York (State)—Ithaca—Biography. 5. Cornell University—Biography. 6. Russians in literature. 7. Szeftel, Marc. I. Title. PS3527.A15P5936 1997 97–10871 813Ј.54—dc21 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. Marc Szeftel’s passport (facing title page) courtesy of Division of Manuscripts and University Archives at Suzzallo and Allen Libraries, University of Washington Jacket drawing courtesy of Milton Glaser. Copyright ᭧ 1956 by Milton Glaser To Rami, Mara, and Sasha as well as to my Vitebsk-born father Now a question addressed to myself. Why do I spend so much time on this daily personal conversation ... ? The question provides some of the answer: it is a substitute for the absent conversation .... This is number one. Num­ ber two is in a different perspective: I hope to be read by those who will look for my contact after I am gone. And finally, writing itself is appealing .... I am not Nabokov.... Anything [hel wrote had literary value; as to my writing, it may have little or even none. But it may have some, and this may be enough to be read. -Marc Szeftel, Diary, February 18,1978 Contents Acknowledgments x Introduction 3 1 / Marc Szeftel's Odyssey: An Alien and an Exile 11 2 / Colleagues and Collaborators: Szeftel and Nabokov at Cornell 24 3/ Pnin 42 4 / Szeftel in Search of Success: Lolita 60 5/ Life After Nabokov 74 Conclusion 89 Appendixes: From Marc Szeftel's Archive and Writings 1/ Szeftel's "Intellectual Autobiography" 92 2 / Correspondence with Vladimir N abokov and Roman Jakobson 103 3/ Nabokov in Szeftel's Diaries 120 4 / Szeftel's Papers on Lolita 136 Notes 147 Bibliography 193 Index 199 ix Acknowledgments I am grateful to the Graduate School Fund of the University of Washington for the 1992 Summer Research Grant which allowed me to start working on this book, and for the Fund's 1993 Addendum to the same grant, which paid for travel to Ithaca in the fall of 1993. Special thanks go to Brian Boyd, D. Barton Johnson, and Daniel Waugh, who answered my questions and offered suggestions throughout my work on the manuscript and then readily agreed to critique the manuscript once it was ready, providing volumes of useful commentary without which this book would have been so much poorer. Dan Waugh was also instrumental in making me undertake this study, for it was he who alerted me to the existence of Marc Szeftel's archive at the Suzzallo Library of the University of Washington. I am also grateful to Robert Alter and an anonymous reader, whose evaluations of my manuscript for the University of Washington Press were very helpful and deeply gratifying. Robert Alter was among the first people who knew about my project back when I was still only contemplating it, and his encouragement and support at the time were invaluable. My heartfelt thanks and gratitude also go to: Marc Szeftel's family: especially Kitty Szeftel, who kindly and patiently spent many hours with me, both in person and on the phone, as well as Sophie Tatiana Keller, Marc Watson Szeftel, Daniel and Linda Crouse, Flora Sheffield, William Nemerever, and Donald Keller for their friendliness and eagerness to cooperate with my project, and for all the information they provided. My colleagues at the University of Washington: In addition to the late Donald Treadgold and Imre Boba, I thank Jack Haney, Willis Konick, Jim Augerot, Karl Kramer, Nora Holdsworth, Larry Lerner, and Peter Sugar, who shared their reminiscences with me, and, in some instances, served as consultants in matters where my own expertise was not sufficient; Hillel Kieval for materials on Jewish history, and help with Hebrew; and George Klim and Katarzyna Dziwirek for assisting me with Polish. x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi Other fellow Nabokovians: Vladimir Alexandrov, for his early enthusiasm about the project and his encouragement; and Gene Barabtarlo and Stephen Jan Parker, for their readiness and willingness to share expertise, reminis­ cences, and advice. Other colleagues and friends: among them Beth Holmgren and Madeline Levine, who enlightened me on Polish intellectual history. People at Cornell and in Ithaca, who readily provided sought-after infor­ mation in interviews and/or letters: M. H. Abrams, Gardner Clark, Peter Kahn, James McConkey, Charlotte Fogel, Walter M. Pintner, John Marcham, Knight Biggerstaff, Beatrice MacLeod, Milton Cowan, Gould P. Colman, William Brown, Milton Barnett, Dorothy Staller, and Marianne R. Marsh, Administrative Manager in the Department of English, who went beyond the call of duty to help me locate people I needed. Nabokov's and Szeftel's other colleagues, friends or students who re­ sponded to my inquiries in a most helpful fashion: Robert M. Adams, Vera S. Dunham, Franklin A. Walker, Daniel Matuszewski, R. E. Johnson, Gus­ tave Alef, Charles Timberlake, John C. Cairns, Florence Clark, Lee Croft, George Gibian, John Trueman, and the late Harry Levin. I am also grateful to Steven Rudy for commenting on chapter 2 of the present study, sharing his thoughts on Roman Jakobson and Jakobson's collaboration with Szeftel and Nabokov, as well as for granting me permis­ sion, on behalf of The Roman Jakobson and Krystina Pomorska Jakobson Foundation, Inc., to publish for the first time Roman Jakobson's letters to Marc Szeftel. In addition, Alison Jolly was extremely helpful in commenting on the parts of this book which dealt with Nabokov's relationship with her father, Morris Bishop, and in making it possible for me to quote from Morris Bishop's unpublished letters. I would like to thank Dmitri Nabokov, who allowed me to publish his father's and mother's letters to Szeftel; John Marcham, who permitted me to quote from his father's unpublished reminiscences; Paul Gates, James McConkey, Stephen Jan Parker, and Charles Nicol, who agreed to let me quote from their letters to Marc Szeftel; and Cornell Magazine, which granted me permission to reprint Marc Szeftel's 1980 article, "Lolita at Cornell." Further gratitude and thanks go to: Naomi Pascal, associate director and editor-in-chief of the University of Washington Press, herself a former student of Professor Nabokov and life- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xii long admirer of the writer Nabokov, for believing in the project in its earliest stages. Also Gretchen Van Meter, editor at the UW Press, for her painstaking yet sensible and sensitive copyediting. The administration and staff of the Division of Manuscripts and Univer­ sity Archives at Suzzallo and Allen Libraries of the University of Washington-Karyl Winn, Kerry Bartels, Nan Cohen, Janet Ness, and, in particular, Gary Lundell-for all their enthusiasm about the project and help with Szeftel's archive, as well as for permission to publish some of the archive's materials. The administration and staff of the Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University, and in particular Gould P. Colman, the University Archivist at the time, for their generous and courteous service and advice. Fred Bauman, Reference Librarian in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress for his help with obtaining permission for me to review Nabokov's "Notes for Pnin's Life," which are kept there. The administration and staff of Holland Library at the Washington State University at Pullman, and, in particular, John F. Guido and Siegfried Vogt, for sharing with me the catalogue of Marc Szeftel's library, which Kitty Szeftel had donated to them after Marc Szeftel's death, and for helping me to locate some of the books that were not immediately available on the library shelves. My research assistants, Yelena Furman and Dana Sherry, graduate stu­ dents in the department and both astute readers of Nabokov, for their help with letter writing, bibliographic research, and photocopying. And, of course, my husband Rami, and my daughters Mara and Sasha, for all their love, help, and support, as well as for the meaning they give to my life. Parts of chapter 3 appeared in The Nabokovian as "Pnin Revisited, Or What's in the Name{s)" {Fall 1993), and are reprinted here with that jour­ nal's permission.
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