Véra Nabokov was the wife and assistant to the great Russian expatriate novelist Vladimir Nabokov. She was his closest confidante and adviser, and his grandest love. Almost all of these previously unpublished Letters to Véra are from the years 1923 to 1950, throughout their courtship and the first and most difficult half of their marriage. After that, during the years of Vladimir Nabokov's greatest literary fame, they were rarely separated and had no need to correspond.
The earliest letters in particular are wonderfully expressive, full of gorgeous imagery, dialogues and "imaginary nonsense." In 1926, Véra went to a sanatorium to be treated for anxiety, depression and weight loss, and Vladimir wrote to her almost every day. Those letters are flooded with his ardent love, and perhaps with his concern to entertain her and lift her mood. "I more than adore you. You are my happiness and life. When I think about you, I get so happy and light, and since I think about you always, I'm always happy and light." He playfully records his meals and activities, showers her with jokes, innuendoes and precisely observed compliments, creates puzzles for her to solve and invents different "little critters" for each of his salutations--"pusschen," "little old man," "Goosikins," "Poochums," "my sweet little legs."
In early 1937, Vladimir had a serious affair, and for a while his endearments alternate with impatience and irritation. Later letters are more calm and businesslike, but full of love and description. "It's warmer today, the snow more sugary, the sky has a Menton tone, and everywhere in the building the sun is trying to draw circles or squares. Et je t'aime. I feel onderful (I had the cigarette holder between my teeth)--I feel wonderful, smoking less, because it's not allowed in most rooms here." He adds funny sketches and postscripts in block print to their young son, and periodic reassurances of his fidelity: "They placed me in the actors' dorm (in the male wing I love you)."
Letters to Véra was edited by Nabokov scholar Brian Boyd and translated with sensitivity and skill by Olga Voronina. Boyd introduces the volume with a long satisfying biographical essay on the Nabokovs' marriage, the pair's personal qualities and what he feels the letters reveal about them. In a translator's preface and in some of the endnotes, Voronina describes the challenges presented by Nabokov's word play across multiple languages, his puzzles and quirks of style. Thorough annotation, an excellent index, a biographical timeline and many photographs and reproductions of letter excerpts round out a book that will be a joy to both scholars and literary fans. --Sara Catterall
Shelf Talker: Novelist Vladimir Nabokov's brilliant and loving letters to his wife and assistant, Véra, illuminate their long devoted marriage and provide fresh perspectives on the author.