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Dar. New York, 1952 (The Gift, 1963) Nabokov's Russian masterwork tells the story of "a great writer in the making." It contains a good deal of autobiographical material, including the seemingly preordained courtship and marriage of the central couple, Fyodor and Zina, and an especially vivid portrait of the hero's father. Still, in a 1962 interview Nabokov reflected: "I am very careful to keep my characters beyond the limits of my own identity. Only the background of the novel can be said to contain some biographical touches." Nabokov's protagonist is Fyodor, whose chef d'oeuvre is a critical biography of Nikolai Chernyshevski, the father of socialist realism in 1860s Russia and a revered figure in Soviet circles. In addition to writing his own novel about Fyodor, Nabokov had to compose Fyodor's poetry and prose as well as his biography of Chernyshevski, which required a substantial amount of "monstrously difficult" research. Public readings in 1935 and 1937 received positive responses, but Sovremennye zapiski, the faithful publisher of his previous six novels, refused to print chapter four, "The Life of Chernyshevski," in which Nabokov lampooned the Russian literary legend. Nabokov dug in his heels, and wrote to his editors: "I can accept no compromises or joint efforts and have no intention of striking out or altering a single line." Ultimately, though, he gave in. Dar was serialized in Sovremennye zapiski, without the controversial chapter, from April 1937 to October 1938. He would have to wait fifteen years to see the censored text restored, when the novel was issued in New York in 1952 by Chekhov House, an arm of the Ford Foundation's Eastern European Fund, which sought to promote internal and external émigré writers in their mother countries. The translation of Dar into English was one of Nabokov's earliest goals after his emigration to the United States in 1940. In 1942 he wrote to James Laughlin at New Directions, but failed to elicit interest in the project. Ten years later he approached Viking Press, which also declined. Finally, yet another decade later, Putnam's agreed. The success of that firm's 1958 edition of Lolita had given Nabokov substantial lobbying power, which he used to bring about Invitation to a Beheading (1959), The Defense (1964), and Despair (1966), as well as The Gift (1963). The enthusiastic reception he received from his next publisher, McGraw-Hill, would allow him to bring the rest of his Russian novels into English, as King, Queen, Knave (1968), Mary (1970), and Glory (1971), and to publish translations of his Russian stories from the 1920s and 30s. Dmitri began the translation of Dar, but had time for only the first chapter. Nabokov translated all of the poetry - overt and disguised - himself, and supervised Michael Scammell's translation of the balance of the text. Two excerpts appeared in The New Yorker before the book came out. Brian Boyd sums up the critical response to The Gift, published twenty-five years after its Russian original: "Advertised as 'the greatest Russian novel to appear in the last fifty years,' its appearance confirmed the depth and range of Nabokov's talent. A New York Herald Tribune review was not atypical: 'As if we all didn't know, there is a giant among us. . . .'"
V. Sirin [Vladimir Nabokov] Véra Nabokov Michael Scammell Michael Scammell Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov Michael Scammell Michael Scammell Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov |
Russia
1899-1919 | Europe 1919-1939
| U.S. 1940-1960 | Switzerland
1960-1977
TOC | Introduction
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