Scattered facts about Nabokov as author and personality are included here. These nuggets of information are of no use to anybody but they're pretty neat nonetheless.
synesthesia
Nabokov could see letters in color. Each character had a different value. This phenomenon is known as synesthesia (defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as "a concomitant sensation; especially: a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated.") and it works roughly the same part of the brain that gives us the ability to conjure metaphors and similes -- the gift and genius for comparing seemingly disparate objects or conditions came to Nabokov naturally."...And also I have this rather freakish gift of seeing letters in colors. it's called color hearing. Perhaps one in a thousand has that. But I'm told by psychologists that most children have it, that later they lose that aptitude when they are are told by stupid parents that it's all nonsense, an A isn't black, a B isn't brown -- don't be absurd."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions
index cards!
There are as many methods to the physical crafting of prose as there are writers -- but VN's was one of the rarest: a word processor before anyone had heard of such a thing.The only other person I'm familiar with who composes in index cards is Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, who describes his writing method in the far superior Lila. Computers have made it easier to go back and revise, but anyone who has worked with a typewriter can tell you how dreary the task becomes -- index cards allow for a sort of random access memory analogue, where you can stack and shift words around w/o much pain.
I've been told that Jane Austen also liked to write on index cards.
"...Since this entire structure, dimly illumined in one's mind, can be compared to a painting, and since you do not have to work gradually from left to right for its proper perception, I may direct my flashlight at any part or particle of the picture when setting it down in writing. I do not begin my novel at the beginning I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four... This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times...
"...I find cards especially convenient when not following the logical sequence of chapters but preparing instead this or that passage at any point of the novel and filling in the gaps in no special order."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions
wear it out
The first name follows the stresses of "Redeemer." The stress falls on the middle syllable of "Nabokov", not (as in the Police song) in an artificially elongated first. The poem, composed by Nabokov for his students, might help.
The querulous gawk of
A heron at night
Prompts Nabokov
To write."I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name...
"It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the 'a' of the first syllable as a misprint and the tries to restore the symmetrical sequence by by triplicating the 'o' -- filling up the row of circles, so to speak, as in a game of crosses and naughts. No-bow-cough. How ugly, how wrong. Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals develops a bird-watcher's or caterpillar-picker's knack when scanning an article. But in my case I always get caught by the word 'nobody' when capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle as Russians also do. Na-bo-kov. A heavy open 'o' as in 'Knickerbocker'. My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle 'o' of Nabokov as delivered in American academies. The awful 'Na-bah-kov' is a despicable gutterism. Well, you can make your choice now."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions