Nabokov, 1964: "The great fraternity of C-minus, backbone of the nation, steadily scribbling on"

The Longform site has posted a 1964 Playboy interview with Vladimir Nabokov, conducted by Alvin Toffler.  This only goes to prove that once upon a generation Americans enjoyed a little intellectual fancy with their pictorial pleasures, even though the conversation returns most  often to the topic of American sexual mores.(Well, it is Playboy magazine, after all.)

Still, it is good to re-discover the author's innate sense of irony and humor at every turn of phrase. The lengthy chat is worth a long read. When discussing the intent of his celebrated novel on American readers, VN is pretty charming:  "I find it very amusing when a friendly, polite person says to me—probably just in order to be friendly and polite—“Mr. Naborkov,” or “Mr. Nabahkov,” or “Mr. Nabrov” or “Mr. Nabohkov,” depending on his linguistic abilities, “I have a little daughter who is a regular Lolita."




Playboy: Do you feel that Lolita’s twofold success has affected your life for the better or for the worse?

Nabokov: I gave up teaching—that’s about all in the way of change. Mind you, I loved teaching, I loved Cornell, I loved composing and delivering my lectures on Russian writers and European great books. But around 60, and especially in winter, one begins to find hard the physical process of teaching, the getting up at a fixed hour every other morning, the struggle with the snow in the driveway, the march through long corridors to the classroom, the effort of drawing on the blackboard a map of James Joyce’s Dublin or the arrangement of the semi-sleeping car of the St. Petersburg-Moscow express in the early 1870s—without an understanding of which neither Ulysses nor Anna Karenina, respectively, makes sense. 

For some reason my most vivid memories concern examinations. Big amphitheater in Goldwin Smith. Exam from 8 a.m. to 10:30. About 150 students—unwashed, unshaven young males and reasonably well-groomed young females. A general sense of tedium and disaster. Half-past eight. Little coughs, the clearing of nervous throats, coming in clusters of sound, rustling of pages. Some of the martyrs plunged in meditation, their arms locked behind their heads. I meet a dull gaze directed at me, seeing in me with hope and hate the source of forbidden knowledge. Girl in glasses comes up to my desk to ask: “Professor Kafka, do you want us to say that…? Or do you want us to answer only the first part of the question?” The great fraternity of C-minus, backbone of the nation, steadily scribbling on. A rustic arising simultaneously, the majority turning a page in their bluebooks, good teamwork. The shaking of a cramped wrist, the failing ink, the deodorant that breaks down. When I catch eyes directed at me, they are forthwith raised to the ceiling in pious meditation. Windowpanes getting misty. Boys peeling off sweaters. Girls chewing gum in rapid cadence. Ten minutes, five, three, time’s up.

Playboy: Citing in Lolita the same kind of acid-etched scene you’ve just described, many critics have called the book a masterful satiric social commentary on America. Are they right?

Nabokov: Well, I can only repeat that I have neither the intent nor the temperament of a moral or social satirist. Whether or not critics think that in Lolita I am ridiculing human folly leaves me supremely indifferent. But I am annoyed when the glad news is spread that I am ridiculing America.

Playboy: But haven’t you written yourself that there is “nothing more exhilarating than American Philistine vulgarity”?

Nabokov: No, I did not say that. That phrase has been lifted out of context, and like a round, deep-sea fish, has burst in the process. If you look up my little afterpiece, “On a Book Entitled Lolita,” which I appended to the novel, you will see that what I really said was that in regard to Philistine vulgarity—which I do feel is most exhilarating—no difference exists between American and European manners. I go on to say that a proletarian from Chicago can be just as Philistine as an English duke. ...


This interview is part of The Playboy Interview: Men of Letters, a new ebook anthology that also includes conversations with Allen Ginsberg, Kurt Vonnegut, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, and others