January 2011
8 posts
Nonfiction: Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution... →
bananapunchmishap:
Vladimir Nabokov may be known to most people as the author of classic novels like “Lolita” and “Pale Fire.” But even as he was writing those books, Nabokov had a parallel existence as a self-taught expert on butterflies.
He was the curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, and collected the insects across the United States. He...
“Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss
Poems that take a...”
– “A Discovery” (December 1941); published as “On Discovering a Butterfly” in The New Yorker (15 May 1943); also in Nabokov’s Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 274
nympholeptic spasm.
fountainnotmountain:
In 1961, the Nabokovs were concerned about their son’s romantic misadventures in Italy, so Vladimir sent him a short letter:
To: Dmitri Nabokov
I have interrupted my literary labors to compose this instructive little jingle:
In Italy, for his own good, A wolf must wear a Riding Hood
Please bear this in mind.
Love,
Father
“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”
– Vladimir Nabokov. (via derfuchsunddiekatze)
“I have left out the main characteristic of the famous Lolita smile, namely:...”
– Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. (via exempli-gratia)
(via grey-girl)