Balasa to Paddy on 17-4-1970:
I have read Nabokov's Lolita. Quote: "Although I realize it is excellent writing, I disliked it intensily. (...) Nabokov has turned the world into a synonim of American coca-cola bred girl-hood. (...) To my mind he [Nabokov] is an unbalanced person and his interest in sexual abnormalisation is not that of a scientist, but that of an addict, which is most unpleasant given the subject."
On 23-4-1970:
"I have just been reading Nabokov's "Speak Memory" /
and am enchanted. I am glad to be able to change my /
mind about him and his mind. He describes in beautiful /
words his lost childhood. He is a magician who can /
evoke the most secret memories of that very young child /
Russian (but cosmopolitan) in his every day life; which /
leaves a stamp on the soft and ungraven texture of /
his mind and character. How I understand him and /
love him for all his description of country houses /
and life in them so Baleni-like and Golasei-like. /
I am so glad to be able to lay on the mound of /
hatred I had accumulated on Lolita, one pure flower of /
love - shall we say a white narcissus on a long /
stalk, smelling of spring which I've just picked. Nabokov has now become /
a friend of spirit. (I still and always shall dislike /
Lolita) one likes to change ones mind about countries or /
people or persons doesn't one? It means that one is /
still alive and a lost ???? unstuborn."
On 24-4-1970:
"I have finished "Speak Memory" by Nabokov and loved /
it. Pomme is reading it now. He describes the same /
cycle of house in the country and Biarrits + Cannes in /
the winter. It is exactly the same that of our childhood /
and as he and I were born in the same year we may have /
played together on the same beaches as I remember several /
small Russian children we played with as well as English /
and American. These last Miss Williamson rather disapproved /
of I can't think for what reason. We called them the Brownies /
because they had brown Wellingtons and Mackintoshes. We overheard /
Miss Williamson saying to Mummy: "We can't have the children /
catching their dreadful accent." It meant nothing to us of /
course, and we went on having them as play-mates for /
digging in the sand, making castles and collecting shells. /
English and Russian children with perfect governesses where /
approved of. Spaniards at Biarrits were considered, /
perfectly allright, but we found them pampered children. /
At the same time fierce and easily hot-tempered and /
also suddenly called by "ama" (nanny) to drink choclate /
and be kissed by mothers. Strange children, very beautiful /
with huge eyes and lovely hair from fair to brown to black."
"Nabokov has brought back so much of childhood. /
The same cosmopolitanism - The same uprooting. /
His complexity of feeling, his understanding of /
every shadow of character are amazing, and his /
[c]ommand of English is wonderful. Of course /
[m]uch of his vocabulary is quite out of my reach /
although I catch the meaning of it more or less./
His philosophical and scientific vocabulary are /
[b]eyond my knowledge. I read his book with great /
pleasure and wonder if I could find another rather /
like this one and unlike Lolita."
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