Vladimir and Vera Nabokov, two names that are forever entwined together in history, seem to be the original power couple in modern times, as evidenced by Stacy Schiff's incredible, highly-researched biography. Even more striking is the fact that they were a powerful couple only in the literary world, which is often eclipsed by some of the more, shall we say, tangible fields. But Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov shows without a doubt that Vladimir Nabokov would not have been the success he was, the VN steeped in Russian and English literature, without Vera. She was his love, his muse, present in every novel, although she never admitted it; she was his manager and his agent and his banker — she was everything in the world to him, sacrificing her own personality, essentially, to build something of the Nabokov brand and to keep her husband happily enclosed inside the world of his own literary genius. Both he and she deliver in that way. Schiff brilliantly presents Nabokov as his own real-life bumbling Professor Pnin — a comparison I noted with amusement — with dutiful wife Vera always by his side to support him, or correct him, or to show him the way.The biography was more than a biography of Vera, or even Vladimir. It was a history of the company the pair created together, inseparable husband and wife through all of their long lives together. There is much more into their history together in this book than I ever knew existed, a testament to the author's skill. And what's remarkable is that there was enough to document even though Vera adamantly tried to erase herself from her husband's history. Her feelings toward her husband's brief but devastating flings in his youth, his lackadaisical approach to his own affairs except for writing and butterfly-hunting, his amusingly pathetic attempts to live his life without her: all are presented clearly in the book thanks to the testimony of hundreds of people who knew the Nabokovs.Yes, it's a stunning glimpse into his, her and their lives. I found it especially interesting to read about Lolita's hardships in coming to fruition, especially in the U.S. It seems most people think they know who Vladimir Nabokov is because of Lolita, as if that is his only work, and the one that proves he was himself a pedophile, a pervert, all those names that people said about the book when he was trying to find a publisher for it. But that book is such a fraction of his repertoire that it's embarrassing, almost, that Nabokov's entire body of work — his entire life! — is reduced to that one novel. It played an enormous part of the Nabokovs' lives, moreso than I ever knew until reading this book — I was almost pleased to see a truthful admission that as much as Lolita was an artistic masterpiece, it also was a commercial necessity because the Nabokovs had become essentially broke. That was a piece of their history I never knew, that for most of their lives, Vladimir and Vera had very little. Russian refuges and émigrés in Europe, without a nation or a home, really, they were the quintessential image of someone fleeing oppression; both their wealthy, privileged upbringings and their sudden descent into chaos in revolutionary Russia are reflected elsewhere in their lives, in literature and otherwise. In Schiff's depiction of the couple, Vera was the much more foreboding, imposing, powerful figure, compared to her meek, clumsy, forgetful husband — which is very much the image she wanted to project, it seems, in the way she protected her husband. She was no ordinary housewife, or even literary wife. Even after his death, she did not grieve. She was practical and pragmatic, unwavering emotionally, so that his estate could be taken care of and his reputation would be carried on forever. I loved how she said she knew Nabokov the author would long outlive both Nabokov the man, just as it would outlive her. But she hoped, to some degree, to fade into the background, allowing her husband to eclipse her. Clearly, with records and evidence existing to support Schiff's book, Vera will remain beside her husband forever.I could gush about Nabokov's literary merit forever, but I won't. I'll just say that Vera was the most important thing to ever happen to him, both for him and his readers to this day. Vera is a must-read for Nabokovians, one that will enhance the already giant image of this literary mastermind.
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 each sunflower in the face, they all smiled back at me with their seeds.This is how Vladimir Nabokov wrote to his wife, Véra. She was a lover of the arts and literature; a woman who spoke four languages and taught and translated modern langauages. She was also the integral half of Vladimir Nabokov, the man who was a great writer but a “helpless” individual; a socially awkward professor who even after years at a university, still got lost on his way to class; a man who didn't know how to rent an apartment or keep a bank account; a playboy and flirt. She was radiant, regal, elegance personified, a head-turner. She was "mnemogenic"--subtly endowed with the gift of being remembered.This is a biography that is as much about Vladimir as it is about Vera because according to people who knew them, they were one, indeed: Inseparable, self-sufficient, they form a multitude of two.Lectures on Literature beseeches me from my bedside table each night. I loved Spring in Fialta and for a while now, I’ve anticipated reading Speak, Memory. Though I didn’t care for the story of Lolita or its emotionally disturbed main character, Humbert and his idée fixe, I admired the prose. So when I ran across Véra, I was intrigued. Who was she and just how much did she influence literature?This is elegant prose, dissected into an engrossing read, with meticulousness that avoids laboriousness. Stacy Schiff's subtle use of Nabokov's lyricism (in his letters to his wife) is as exquisite as the scholarship that is this book. The eastern side of my every minute is already colored by the light of our impending meeting.This is not a cheap look at Vladimir through his wife. No. What makes the style and structure of this biography appealing is the legitimacy of this premise: there was no Vera without Vladimir. No Vladimir without Vera. Without my wife, I wouldn’t have written a single novel.If only more writers would marry intellectual partners who speak several languages, translate their work, edit and type their manuscripts, act as their agent and assistant, their teaching substitute, their muse, accountant, and abiding support. Who knows how many more manuscripts would be completed and submitted to numerous publishing platforms until someday a “yes” shall resound?They were "genteel poverty, proud poverty, golden poverty, dire poverty," and she wasn't afraid to work as a translator during the days it was deemed uncouth for women to be taking male jobs. Yet her life's work was her husband's. While Vladimir wrote, Vera typed, edited, and submitted. She also translated his work--or at least ensured that the translation was done properly: “It was her job to make sure that the pink clouds described by her husband as flamingoes did not mutate into Flemish-painted ones as they did in French rendering.” By "her job," Schiff means, Véra made it her job. Every editor or publisher knew that to touch Nabokov's work meant to commit one's self to perfection or else. Deal with Véra.Sometimes I read biographies to get the human experience. Sometimes I read them to disappear from my life, by entering another's. So as I sat there on my sick bed, battling a form of neuralgia and trying to escape the pain, I was baffled to learn that Véra also struggled with some form of neuralgia and that despite the difference in time and place, she and I also had very similar childhoods (the calm before the storm) and immigrant experiences. So sometimes you go to escape but instead, you find kindredness.This is a book that has a love affair with books and the process of writing them. Vera liked Fitzgerald's Crack-up and Great Gatsby (bless her heart, my two favorites of his) and Evelyn Waugh's works (which I need to tackle soon). Most important, she liked to discuss and debate authors like Gogol and Grant and Kafka and Dostoevsky with her husband. She was extremely well-read and such a meticulous reader, writer, and editor that for years it was rumored that she wrote parts of his work. As if that wasn't enough, she knew every line of her husband's verse by heart ('from 1921 forward"). Without that air that comes from you I can neither think nor write nor do anything else.(Nabokov to his wife)
Do You like book Vera (Mrs.Vladimir Nabokov) (2000)?
I did not anticipate that I would like the later part of the book more than the beginning. When reading biographies, I usually like learning about the subject's childhood because it's often an illuminating perspective from which to view their development as an individual. However, I felt that the beginning of Vera dragged with repetitive information. True, less was known about Vera as a child and young woman, and what Stacy Schiff did unearth was admirable, but much of content could be summarized by the Introduction where we learn that Vera is enigmatic, firm, educated, and devoted to both Art and her husband. I almost became very frustrated with the book, both because of its pace and because I found the Nabokovs unlikeable. But somewhere in the middle–I'm not sure where–I started coming around. Both Vera and her husband lived to be quite old and I guess that the story of anyone's life that is fortunate to be that long is bound to be interesting. Also, Schiff had more interesting material to share. By that time, Vladimir Nabokov was famous throughout the world and there was a great deal of coverage about him and consequently, his wife. I will hand it to Schiff -- she is a good writer. Ultimately she did a wonderful job painting the unusual life of an elusive woman and her extraordinarily rich marriage.
—Sushila
I don't understand how she forgave him, but I've also never felt anything like the connection between the Nabokovs--instantaneous and entire. Two aptly chosen words on the back of this book that concisely describe Schiff's greatest gift: "succint insight". Also, balance. The way Schiff writes and interacts with people reminds me of something dainty toeing confidently on a fragile surface. You marvel at her understanding of where the ice is thin and where it's not. Véra with her "crystalline laugh" and Schiff with her crystalline prose. As I read, it was immediately clear that her life was meant to be recorded this way; it was so special. I'm grateful to Schiff for giving Véra her credit. I'm not so sure Véra wanted it, and I'm certain parts of this book would have made her furious. But in the end, it is a beautiful portrait of a beautiful woman and one of the best true love stories I have ever read.One of my favorite sentences: "Véra explained that she had acquired the pistol so as to protect Vladimir from rattlers when he was collecting butterflies, an image that, at both ends of the zoological spectrum, fairly summed up the relationship to many".
—Julie
(I'm moving a few old reviews over from an abandoned book photo project on Flickr.)This was a Bookmooch book, as I recall, from a few years ago, and it's taken me a while to get around to reading it. Nabokov has been one of my favorites since I was about twenty, which means I suppose that I have loved him for a longer time than I have loved Ross. This biography of Vera Nabokov does as it promises to do, in providing a portrait not of her, or of him, but of the entity that was V.N. squared. It's a little slow in parts, but no book about the Nabokovs could ever hope to be one quarter as interesting as the Nabokovs themselves: sharp, sly, strange, hugely egoistic (he on his own behalf, and she as well), fond of mysteries and lies and mirror-images. I love the way the title of this book is embossed, almost invisibly, into its cover, just as Vera was always hidden in plain sight.
—Meera
