Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

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Summary: The Ultimate Woman Behind the Man
Review: "Vera was a pale blonde when I met her, but it didn't take me long to turn her hair white."

The above was taken from one of Nabokov's own journal entries and, although it may seem humorous, it is no doubt true. Pulitzer-Prize winner, Stacy Schiff, suggests, even in the title of her book, that Véra Nabokov was a woman who was only capable of being known as Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov. Her relationship with her famed husband, no matter what its course, was the defining factor of her life. And Véra would have it no other way.

Véra Nabokov has been described as Vladimir Nabokov's "disciple, bodyguard, secretary-protector, handmaiden, buffer, quotation-finder, groupie, advance man, nursemaid and courtier." She is, not unjustly, celebrated as being the ultimate Woman Behind the Man.

Véra graduated from the Sorbonne as a master of modern languages, but, sadly, she did not keep copies of her own work as she did her husband's. In fact, she probably would have denied that her own work was worth keeping, although everything leads us to believe otherwise.

In addition to transcribing, typing and smoothing Valdimir's prose while it was still "warm and wet," Véra cut book pages, played chauffeur, translated, negotiated contracts and did the many practical things her famous husband disdained. This remarkable woman even made sure that the butterflies he collected died with the least amount of suffering.

A precocious child who read her first newspaper at the age of three, Véra was born into a middle-class Jewish family at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Czarist St. Petersburg. In 1921, with the advance of communism, her family settled in Berlin. It was there that she met the dapper and non-Jewish Vladimir. Their marriage would last fifty-two years and be described as an intensely symbiotic coupling.

Although Vladimir traveled and conducted several affairs, Véra supported him throughout, struggling to raise their son amidst the Nazism that was beginning to fester in Berlin. Blaming herself for her husband's infidelity, Véra managed to rejuvenate her marriage and the couple moved again--this time to New York City--where Véra typed Valdimir's manuscripts in bed while recovering from pneumonia. Forever believing in her husband's creative instincts, Véra stood by his art even when debt threatened to overtake them. It was she who intervened on the several occasions when Vladimir attempted to burn his manuscript of Lolita.

Véra Nabokov's tombstone bears the epithet, "Wife, Muse and Agent," and Nabokov knew the immensity of the debt he owed her. Late in life, he even refused to capture a rare butterfly he encountered in a mountain park for the sole reason that Véra was no longer at his side. Like her husband, Véra had highly developed aesthetic tastes and the two enjoyed a "tender telepathy." Often described as "synesthetes," the couple would have debates about "the color of Monday, the taste of E-flat." It is certainly without exaggeration that Nabokov wrote to Véra, "I need you, my fairy tale. For you are the only person I can talk to--about the hue of a cloud, about the singing of a thought, and about the fact that when I went out to work today and looked at each sunflower in the face, they all smiled back at me with their seeds."

Although many feel the Véra should have been encouraged to develop her own considerable talents, it can be argued that she did, and that her greatest talent was that of wife and helpmate. It is certainly one she choose freely and without rancor. The fact that her husband was fortunate, indeed, cannot be denied.

Véra is a book rich in detail, analysis and affection. Like all couples and all marriages, the Nabokovs were unique and they were special. To know one, was to glimpse the other, for with the passing of years, neither was wholly himself or herself. There are those who might not have understood Véra Nabokov's choices and might not have agreed with them, but they are the ones who have never known the ecstasy of a truly close relationship. Véra Nabokov was a most fascinating woman, one that made her own choices in life and lived them most happily. We can only admire her greatly.

Rating:
Summary: The talented woman in the background
Review: Although I would advise a Nabokov fan to read "Speak Memory" and Brian Boyd's biography first, I definitely recommend this biography of the devoted Véra. She was an extremely strong-willed and talented woman. The fact that she didn't try to become an author in her own right and even downplayed her contributions to Vladimir's work will baffle some readers. These same readers (especially females), many of whom believe the secret to happiness is in "self-expression," will decide that Véra paid an exorbitant price for her very happy marriage.

A quibble: most of this book is about Véra and Vladimir after 1940. One of the many interesting things about Nabokov was that he had been a leading Russian émigré writer years before he arrived in America (with Véra's help, of course). And this part of the story is not developed as fully as the years after the Nabokovs arrived in America. Perhaps this book, and the many Nabokov biographies, will have be re-written some day by an author who moves as easily through the Russian and English languages as Nabokov did himself.

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Summary: A must read for all Nabokov fans
Review: I agree with all the praise given by my fellow amazon readers -- you learn as much about Nabokov by reading about his wife as you do by reading about him (which you can do in his excellent autobiographical novel Speak, Memory). My only small quibble is that the first half was a tad slow moving -- things definitely picked up once they arrived in the United States, especially the Cornell years. Having just read this book back to back with Nora (the biography of James Joyce's wife), I have to admit that as much as I enjoyed this book, I found Nora more gripping overall. Still, I would encourage anyone who loves Nabokov to read this book, even if you have to skip some of the denser parts. Hats off to Schiff who certainly did her research and presents everything you could ever want to know about Nabokov but were afraid to ask.

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Summary: Tells how but not why
Review: I guess that I am a little behind the times on this one, but I just found out today that the author won the Pulitzer for this book. I can't agree more. I felt that she captured the essence of Vera and although it is abundantly clear that Vera was Nabakov's biggest fan and defender, I think that the author does a good job of showing the strength of Vera as her own woman, in her own right. Excellent biography.

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Summary: PERFECT THREE-WAY UNION: HUSBAND, WIFE, AUTHOR.
Review: In a vein not unsimilar to Brenda Maddox's biography of Nora Joyce a decade ago, Stacy Schiff compassionately and vividly weaves together the beautiful tapestry of Vladimir and Vera Nabokov. For those who thought the master's works can speak for themselves, they may want to think again. This lucid, brilliant book brings together the complex author's life, marriage, loves, ideals, frustrations, and, ultimately, genius as biographies rarely do. At the same time, Vera is no shrinking violet either and one wonders about what would have become of the author had she not been a tad forward about meeting him in the first place; certainly the history of 20th century literature would have suffered by it. My wish is that Ms Schiff continue in this vein...perhaps a different view of Frieda Lawrence or the long-suffering Mrs Dickens? Like this book, they will most likely be indispensable.

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Summary: yes, but....
Review: it was a very good biography, but if you read the Boyd bio of her husband first you may be left wondering if he had already snatched up all the good quotes.

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Summary: A stunning look into the intricacies of marriage
Review: Stacy Schiff meets her challenge head on: how to write the biography of one-half of a duo that valued the right turn of phrase as much as anything. She succeds wonderfully. The book is written in a language that does enormous justice both to its main character and to Véra's beloved Nabokov. It gives many clues as to what made this extraordinary woman tick but ultimately it does not give any definite answers because probably none can be found. It leaves the reader with a yearning for those difficult times that gave birth to the émigré society from which the Nabokovs came but to which they didn't really belong. Difficult they may have been but what great literature and what amazing personalities emerged from them.

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Summary: An awesome job on a seemingly impossible task
Review: This is the book Nabokov fans have been waiting for, but suspected would never (COULD never) be written. From the opening sentences it's clear that Schiff has the stuff equal to her daunting task--to get behind the artfully constructed public face of two of the most brilliant, but most private, people ever to enter the public eye. Schiff does it with awesome research and a, by turns, witty, moving, penetrating, sometimes acerbic, but always admiring prose. The portrait of Vera, you feel, is definitive, but so, too, is the portrait of Vladimir--a portrait that points up the flaws and gaps in earlier depictions, like that of the dutifully plonking Boyd biographies with their laughable "interpretation" of Pale Fire. That Schiff is delineating the dynamic of a highly unique marriage (not just the two complex personalities that made up that marriage) makes her accomplishment seem all the more miraculous. Finally, Schiff's method is ultimately Nabovian in that she gives us a portrait of the master without peering at him directly: the book is Vladimir reflected in Vera's pale fire--which, as it turns out, is the best way to see him whole. Or, rather, to see them BOTH whole. After reading this book, it is impossible to speak of either Vladimir, or Vera, as a single entity, ever again.

Rating:
Summary: The story of a special marriage well told
Review: Vera Nabakov was totally devoted to her husband, to his life and to his work. Stacy Schiff's excellent biography tells their story in considerable detail. Vera Slonim the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family in marrying Nabakov made her religion his life and his art. She took upon herself many of the practical tasks that Nabakov disdained. They developed between themselves a private language in which they shared their own unique synashaetic way of feeling the world. She typed and read his manuscripts, found quotations for him helped him create one of the twentieth century's great literary oeuvres.

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Summary: The Real Life of V.
Review: Yeah when i first saw this book about a year ago i immediately had an unpleasent vision: I imagined a string of biographies coming out on Dimitry, Morris Bishop, Simon Karlinsky, Alfred Appel, Phillip Halsman, Irena Guildiarni, Nora Peebles, Edmund Wilson's son, Mary McCarthy's cousin, the writing staff of Time and The New Yorker of the 60's and 70's, and maybe collective biographies featuring hundreds of Nab's students at a time.

Of course, Nab fanatics are insatiable in their appetites and so, being one, my eyes do light up anytime a new book is out about him (or his wife). Knowing the insatiable nature of Nabokovians I am tempted to take advantage of this in ruthless capatilistic fashion by publishing some type of book, say it's called "Nab and Me" or something awful like that... People would immediately know it's trash but I know that true Nabokovians would have to buy it, they would have no choice.

Anyhow this biography was real fun to read and a testament to Nabokov's persistent belief in the subjectivity of everything: Boyd and Schiff cover much of the same ground and yet the stories sound almost completely different. Indeed there is a haunting quality to this work, an interplay of Vera's V and Vladimir's V., leaving the reader to wonder who V. is, and where is V's wife, V., and if they even exist at all. The person impersonating Vladimir in this book may have been the same one as in Boyd's, but the part of Vera is much more rich and present in Schiff's book, whereas whoever was supposed to play her in Boyd's biographies forgot to show up.