Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor

by Vladimir Nabokov, Brian Boyd (Editor), Anastasia Tolstoy (Editor)

A rich compilation of the previously uncollected Russian and English prose and interviews of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers, edited by Nabokov experts Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy.

"I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child: so Vladimir Nabokov famously wrote in the introduction to his volume of selected prose, Strong Opinions. Think, Write, Speak follows up where that volume left off, with a rich compilation of his uncollected prose and interviews, from a 1921 essay about Cambridge to two final interviews in 1977. The chronological order allows us to watch the Cambridge student and the fledgling Berlin reviewer and poet turn into the acclaimed Paris émigré novelist whose stature brought him to teach in America, where his international success exploded with Lolita and propelled him back to Europe. Whether his subject is Proust or Pushkin, the sport of boxing or the privileges of democracy, Nabokov's supreme individuality, his keen wit, and his alertness to the details of life illuminate the page.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Writing, Criticism, Literature, Literary Criticism, Biography

576 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2019

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Набоков) was a writer defined by a life of forced movement and extraordinary linguistic transformation. Born into a wealthy, liberal aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, he grew up trilingual, speaking Russian, English, and French in a household that nurtured his intellectual curiosities, including a lifelong passion for butterflies. This seemingly idyllic, privileged existence was abruptly shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution, which forced the family into permanent exile in 1919. This early, profound experience of displacement and the loss of a homeland became a central, enduring theme in his subsequent work, fueling his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the irretrievable past.
The first phase of his literary life began in Europe, primarily in Berlin, where he established himself as a leading voice among the Russian émigré community under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin". During this prolific period, he penned nine novels in his native tongue, showcasing a precocious talent for intricate plotting and character study. Works like The Defense explored obsession through the extended metaphor of chess, while Invitation to a Beheading served as a potent, surreal critique of totalitarian absurdity. In 1925, he married Véra Slonim, an intellectual force in her own right, who would become his indispensable partner, editor, translator, and lifelong anchor.
The escalating shadow of Nazism necessitated another, urgent relocation in 1940, this time to the United States. It was here that Nabokov undertook an extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, making the challenging yet resolute shift from Russian to English as his primary language of expression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945, solidifying his new life in North America. To support his family, he took on academic positions, first founding the Russian department at Wellesley College, and later serving as a highly regarded professor of Russian and European literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959.
During this academic tenure, he also dedicated significant time to his other great passion: lepidoptery. He worked as an unpaid curator of butterflies at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His scientific work was far from amateurish; he developed novel taxonomic methods and a groundbreaking, highly debated theory on the migration patterns and phylogeny of the Polyommatus blue butterflies, a hypothesis that modern DNA analysis confirmed decades later.
Nabokov achieved widespread international fame and financial independence with the publication of Lolita in 1955, a novel that was initially met with controversy and censorship battles due to its provocative subject matter concerning a middle-aged literature professor and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The novel's critical and commercial success finally allowed him to leave teaching and academia behind. In 1959, he and Véra moved permanently to the quiet luxury of the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where he focused solely on writing, translating his earlier Russian works into meticulous English, and studying local butterflies.
His later English novels, such as Pale Fire (1962), a complex, postmodern narrative structured around a 999-line poem and its delusional commentator, cemented his reputation as a master stylist and a technical genius. His literary style is characterized by intricate wordplay, a profound use of allusion, structural complexity, and an insistence on the artist's total, almost tyrannical, control over their created world. Nabokov often expressed disdain for what he termed "topical trash" and the simplistic interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis, preferring instead to focus on the power of individual consciousness, the mechanics of memory, and the intricate, often deceptive, interplay between art and perceived "reality". His unique body of work, straddling multiple cultures and languages, continues to

Reviews

[Bhaskar Thakuria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This important addition to the Nabokov cannon comprises of juvenilia (including two brilliant essays from 1921, while still at Cambridge), essays, editorial correspondences, book reviews and interviews recorded and reproduced from his latter life as a literary celebrity. Indeed this is a treasure trove of fathomless imagery and mordant wit, and should be treasured as the last installment of his unbuplished material following Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings and Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov. The entries included are varied and multifarious, and in number exceed one hundred and fifty, and they are arranged in chronological order from the essays he wrote while still in Cambridge to the interviews he gave shortly before his death.

What particularly held my attention was his essay on Rupert Brooke (1921) which starts with this passage of quintessential Nabokovian imagery:

I watched them; I admired them for a long time; barely flashing, they swam, swam tirelessly back and forth behind the glass barrier, in the haze of the still water, pale green, like slumber, like eternity, like the inner world of a blind man. They were huge, round, colourful: their porcelain scales seemed as if painted in bright colours by a meticulous Chinaman. I looked upon them as in a dream, spellbound by the mysterious music of their flowing, delicate movements. In between these gently shimmering giants darted multicolored fry - tiny specters, reminiscent of the softest butterflies, the most translucent dragonflies. And in the half gloom of the aquarium, as I watched all these fantastical fish, gliding, breathing, staring wide-eyed into their pale-green eternity, I recalled the cool, meandering verses of the English poet who sensed in them, in these supple, iridescent fish, a profound symbol of our existence.

Indeed a man's tribute to a forgotten and lesser known British war poet (and one who died in the first world war) could not be greater! What beautiful imagery and how arcane the use of metaphor in prose that has a rhythmic complexity and nuances of meaning akin to verse!

Another essay that was quite special was 'Laughter and Dreams' (1923) that starts with this amazing reflection:

Art is a permanent wonder, a wizard with a trick of putting two and two together and making five, or a million, or one of those gorgeous giant numbers which haunt and dazzle the delirious mind writhing through a mathematical nightmare.

Indeed there are many hidden and unburied treasures that can be gleaned from and can be savoured again and again. On the hindsight I must say that Nabokov is one of my big favorites and I literally soak up everything that he has written. So I guess I can recommend this only to those who have had a through intro to the writer's work and life.

In structure and presentation this reminds me a lot of D.H.Lawrence's great posthumous memorabilia-collection Phoenix 1: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence
and Phoenix 2.

[Mark Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag, as tends to be the case with this sort of collection, with a ratio of approximately one nugget of unpublished gold to three pieces of relatively uninteresting marginalia. It includes the transcripts of various media interviews in which Nabokov is asked versions of the same one or two unimaginative questions about Lolita, which were clearly as tedious for him to answer as they are for us to read all these years later. There are also some compelling examples of his precocious youthful brilliance and insights into his evolving personality, which on this evidence can reasonably be described as challenging. Whilst a huge fan of his writing, I didn’t come away feeling that I would especially like to have been friends with him.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not read all the essays that are collected in this volume, my love for Nabokov is not so big, anyway some of them are remarkables, some other are just the same words (when he does not contradict himself) in a different order. I would recommend this book only to the biggest fan of the author.

Non ho letto tutti i saggi raccolti in questo volume, il mio amore per Nabokov non é cosí grande, ma alcuni sono veramente interessanti, mentre altri sono solo una ripetizione (quando l'autore non si contraddice). Consiglierei questa raccolta solo ai veri amanti di questo scrittore, per gli altri le raccolte delle lezioni di letteratura sono piú che sufficienti.

THANKS EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Josh Rachac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This new uncollected nabokov is full of rare gems. His essay on Style is one of his best.

[Valentina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology started STRONG. The first essay about Cambridge University really got me when I first picked this book up in a bookstore years ago. Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and buy it, having read Lolita a long time ago and enjoyed it. The Cambridge essay was definitely the strongest work in this collection. Having been there myself (albeit more than 60 years after this essay was written) I recognised the place in his vivid description and vignettes of village and university life. In particular, the dog sitting in a "rhombus of sunlight" really sticks in my head.

Be warned, the second half of this book is largely interviews that repeat the same pedestrian questions over and over again. To the point where I knew exactly what Vladimir would answer before reading on. It would probably be a great resource for anyone writing a dissertation on the author, otherwise it becomes a real slog to get through.

Another notable essay, also towards the start of the book is an essay on the poetry of Rupert Brooke which was well written and provided a great analysis of Brooke's work. I've gone back and read that one a couple times and it remains such a pleasure each time. Additionally, Nabokov wrote some stunning obituaries for people he knew who had passed, which for me totally removed the morbidity that is usually inherent in the format.

Nabokov definitely had the gift of the gab, although he was certainly a product of his time, holding misogynistic and conservative views (sometimes making me angry enough to skip a few pages ahead in those infernal interviews). The collection definitely provides a complete look at who the author was, or at the very least, who he presented himself to be through his writing and in his public life.

Of course he spent much of his life after the publication of Lolita answering the same questions from interviewers - mainly around whether he condones the sort of behaviour displayed by the character in the book. It's an interesting discourse in theory but the reporters of the 1950s probably didn't have the nuance we have today in discussing these topics, rendering the transcripts desultory.

I would recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in the author, and also urge them not to feel bad about skipping the last quarter of the book.

[fisko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, Witty and Snarky!!! Nabokov’s witty nature and his humor are in full force throughout his essays and lectures, and somehow, unlike others (Nietzsche) manages to come off as critical but not snobby. I’d give a lot to be in one of his university lectures, he’s just brilliant.
I hope someone can write about me the way V. N. writes about breakfast…

[Paul Biden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb collection of hard-to-find Nabokov interviews, etc. His exchange with Alain Robbe-Grillet is a highlight.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it can be repetitive this collection still has its moments. There's a very odd humour piece by Nabokov, a few book reviews which will serve as additions to your Want To Read lists, and then the interviews which are a mixture of informative, repetitive, and dull.

If you were to read the whole book in a weekend I imagine you would be annoyed at how many interviews have been reprinted with the same questions and answers present. But, taken a few at a time this is manageable, and there's some fantastic interviews scattered in here, especially the last two where some mention of Nabokov's final unfinished book appears.

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘What I really meant and could not quite express was that I think not in words but in images, swimming colours, in shaded shapes—a type of cogitation that used to be termed “cold delirium” by psychiatrists in old Russia. —You are free to contradict me but I maintain that my English is a timid unreliable witness to the marvellous and sometimes monstrous images I try to describe.’

Enjoyed this even as a reader who is not well-acquainted with Nabokov’s work (fiction/novels, etc.) — so I can only imagine that I will appreciate this even more if/when I read more of his books. Found his thoughts on translation and the process of translation particularly interesting — who would have thought that ‘colour’ could become such a serious ‘obsession’ in the act of literary translation? I certainly didn’t. I liked that though.

‘—Tkhorzhevsky makes a mistake common to all translators from the English. It concerns the colour purple. —“flowing purple” seas; Tkhorzhevsky translates “the seas exhale, burning with a scarlet tremor” (which, besides, recalls Balmont); yet the English “purple” is not the same as the Russian (or French) pourpre (scarlet, vermillion); but rather, it means “lilac,” “violet,” at times (in poetry) even “dark blue.”’

‘—coloured hearing has developed to an extreme degree in me. Consonants, vowels, and diphthongs each have a special colour that I see when I close my eyelids to concentrate my attention on the letter of my choice, in the luminous circle of thought. It can’t be called a gift, since this palette has no artistic utility, and nor is it a medical condition. It seems that very few authors have spoken of this strange peculiarity. Rimbaud’s famous sonnet is suspiciously lyrical, with too many metaphors and not enough precise details. Besides, he describes only vowels, whereas it’s the consonants that offer particularly mysterious and subtle nuances and distinctions.’

‘I am responsible for the glints of verse incrusted in my prose, for so-called untranslatable wordplays, for the velvet of this metaphor, for the cadence of that phrase, and for all the precise botanical, ornithological, and entomological terms that irritate the bad reader of my novels. The only thing that the translator must absolutely know thoroughly is the language in which my text is written; and yet I affirm with more sorrow than astonishment that the most celebrated translators from English into French are at ease only when they deal with clichés. Anything original leads them astray.’

‘—the actual writing of the book (which I always do by hand and generally lying in bed)—was comparatively an easy matter (and took about two months). I had only to copy out in ink the sentences ready in my mind and then to correct very carefully anything that might have got blurred or distorted in the act of copying. This done, I dictated the book to my wife, who typed it. All this refers to the Russian original. When translating it, I again had to rewrite it by hand, changing a lot, because I saw it all in another, English, rhythm and colour.’

‘If you take framboise in French, for example, it’s a scarlet colour, a very red colour. In English, the word raspberry is rather dull, with perhaps a little brown or violet. A rather cold colour. In Russian, it’s a burst of light, malinovoe; the word has associations of brilliance, of gaiety, of ringing bells. How can you translate that?’

[Nog · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his introduction, VN biographer and major fanboy Boyd insists that what’s here isn’t “scraping the barrel.” This despite VN’s own insistence many years earlier that there wasn’t anything left worth publishing. As they say, your mileage may vary, but unless you’re an academic studying the minutiae, you may be rather bored. Certainly the first half of the volume might test your patience, and I would recommend skimming the essays for subjects that interest you.

The second half is almost all interview excerpts. A lot of this ground has been covered elsewhere, especially if you have read Speak Memory, Strong Opinions, Selected Letters, and the Boyd biography. Nonetheless, there are utterances of interest. For instance, about Laughter in the Dark he says, “It’s not particularly good. It’s a little crude.” That was in 1951, and elsewhere in the book, in 1937, he merely tells the interviewer of the writing process, careful not to damage sales. (I tend to agree with his analysis and not the current 4.1 rating of LITD on this site. If you were to believe the ratings here, you would opt for LITD over Lolita. Big mistake. And I would advise first reading The Gift and Invitation to a Beheading before the other Russian novels; those were VN’s personal favorites for a good reason.)

[małgosia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is truly one of the best books I have ever read. It might be quite difficult to pinpoint at first the exact reasons for such state of things, for the book in itself is of a very loose structure (as expected, since it’s a collection of essays, interviews, and other writings by Nabokov) and without a very clear leading motive or idea that could immediately infatuate the reader. Yet “Think, write, speak” is like a literary feast; an undoubtable treasure, perhaps all the more valuable for its unique form. Nabokov’s opinions are controversial, and he might easily come off as pretentious, aloof and condescending. But the thing one cannot deprive him of, it’s the profoundness of his almost metaphysical appreciation for art and beauty of the world. Over the 500 pages of the book, he manages to capture and portray the deep love he has for words, for nature, for literature and culture, and he finds a way to propound his ideas in the rich, nabokovian style that the world has come to know and adore. It is a wonderful read, even for those who are yet to read any of his novels - I’d say even the it’s the perfect introduction, and I can hardly imagine finding yourself reluctant to give them a shot after this wonderful read. One might disagree with Nabokov, but it is impossible to deny his talent and outer worldly sensitivity for the mundane and prosaic things in life he loves so wholeheartedly. Such uncanny affection, especially for art and words that mean the life to him, is passed onto the reader, and I dare say that is the best gift one could hope to receive from an author.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

In general, this was an unnecessarily long collection. We didn't need to read everything Nabokov ever wrote or thought about or answered; it would've been so much better to select important or particularly stylish writing, instead of having this mixed muddle of absolutely everything that included quite a few repetitions.

About the author himself: pedantic, hyper critical, too proud of himself by a mile. We wouldn't have been friends. For one dollar: NAME A FEMALE WRITER.

In terms of the writing: excessively heavy, loooooong sentences that didn't go anywhere, nothing particularly groundbreaking. Too many descriptions of butterflies.

2/5. Yikes.

[Xentorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very cool book, I recommend it to everyone, it talks about the importance and complexity of writing in the modern world. This topic is very relevant for me, since I am a student and cannot always write various kinds of projects on my own. Sometimes I have to turn to ghost writers for help. Therefore, I advise everyone who has not read this book not to put it off.

[MitYork]

This article on "Think, Write, Speak" resonates deeply with the challenges and rewards of expressing complex ideas clearly. For students who are grappling with similar tasks, I'd recommend looking into an affordable academic writing service like EssayBox.org. It can be a valuable resource for those needing a bit of guidance in crafting well-structured essays or papers, ensuring that your thoughts are articulated effectively while meeting academic standards.

[Wesley Glover · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag and perhaps best reserved for the Nabokovphiles, but I really enjoyed a few of the essays. The lecture he delivered to Stanford on Creative Writing was worth the money I spent on the beautiful hardcover edition with a photo of Vladdy leisurely lounging on his couch scribbling on cue cards.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the devotee of Nabokov, all such scraps as these are crumbs from the palm of god.

That being said, not a ton of new material in the later interviews, many of which are just a page or so long, and Nab was clearly recycling his stock interview answers in a lot of them.

A good reference and a fun refresher on VN's eccentricities.

[Myat · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most rewarding things about reading is discovering ur favorite authors had the same favorite authors as u did or better still, that they were well acquainted and quoted each other in their texts.

There comes a turning page in a reader’s journey where we think we’ve exhausted all published works only to pierce the surface of the literary world and reached its underbelly trove of archived works— essays, critiques, transcripted interviews, and newspaper columns.

This book was immensely fun!!

[Viraj]

“I, the man, am a deeply moral, exquisitely kind, old-fashioned and rather stupid person. I, the writer, am different in every respect. It is the writer who answers your last and best question.”

Excerpt From
Think, Write, Speak
Vladimir Nabokov

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some gems , some not so much

[Alberto Ambard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a formidable piece of work. I enjoy the essays the most, of course, but the whole book gives you a very close view of Nabokov.

[Kieran · Rating 5 out of 5]

He sure is smug but my god I love this man.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing wrong with this, just full of minutiae. Nabokov’s minutiae can be very beautiful and interesting, but his novels, stories, and biography are ever so much more so.

[namnoc00]

Worth it for The Creative Writer essay alone.

[Paul Besley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but an enormous amount of repetition. This could have been three-quarters the number of pages. Even VN was referring interviewers to past answers by the end.

[Tom Glaser · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Think, Write, Speak hoping to find some insights into Lolita, which I'd recently reread. While the book delivers these both in the form of some interviewers' very perceptive questions and in Nabokov's possibly disingenuous answers, the side effect of hearing so much from Nabokov is that I ended up rather disliking him. He comes across as an overbearing and narcissistic control freak, obsessed with cultivating a very specific public image. He's sometimes rude to interviewers, is highly critical of most other writers and translators, finds the women's movement ridiculous, defends the American involvement in Vietnam, and is contemptuous of student movements. It gets tiresome and I began to wonder how his Véra tolerated it.

His most interesting comment in regard to Lolita may be in his 1975 interview with Bernard Pivot on French television: "It's the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert."

In a 1962 interview, Nabokov, asked whether the reader should take the duel between Humbert and Quilty seriously, replies, "Down with the serious and sincere reader. After all, not all readers are children who ask if the story is true." In that same year, he told another interlocutor, [Lolita] "is not humor. It's not a story. It's a poem." In a 1959 BBC radio interview, he said, [Lolita] "has no special purpose; it has no special message."

Referring to the passage in the book where Humbert tracks down the now pregnant Mrs. Dolly Schiller, Nabokov comments, "She's not pretty any more, she's not graceful, she's going to have a baby, and it's now that he loves her. It's the great love scene. He says to her, "Leave your husband and come with me," and she doesn't understand. It's still his Lolita and he loves her very tenderly."

In another interview, he offers, "In the end, Humbert realizes that he has destroyed Lolita's childhood and that makes him suffer. It's a work of pity... Humbert has confused morbid love and human love and he has remorse. So he understands why he is writing this book." Speaking with Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the few modern French writers Nabokov admires, he says, "We know very little of Lolita's passion, but it's my hero at first who feels this sensual passion, this storm of sensations, and then at the end, so to speak, human and divine love. My hero renounces this passion, but although she's no longer a nymphet, she is now the love of his life."

He also makes some interesting comments about the creative process. In character, he compares himself to God: "I suspect the Almighty's interest in Adam and Eve was neither very sincere nor very enduring, despite the success, on the whole, of a really marvelous job. I, too, am completely detached from my characters, while making them and after making them."

On memory: "When you remember a thing, you never remember the thing itself, you remember the relation, the association of the thing with something else. And it's the imagination that makes this link between things."

On reality: "I don't believe there's an objective reality. But the combinations the artist invents give or should give the reader the feeling not of average reality, but of a new reality distinctive to the work."

On objects: "The nuance of a wave interests me as much as the girl drowning in it."

On the pleasures of science: "Radiant silence at the bottom of a microscope."

Fun discovery: The book includes Nabokov's reviews of books now forgotten and long out of print. One of the few interesting ones is about a persecuted Russian religious group called the Dukhobors. Tolstoy helped many of them find refuge in British Columbia, where they would protest against public education and military service by burning down their own homes and marching nude.

[Vel Veeter]

This is an odds and ends collection of Nabokov uncollected nonfiction published recently. It spans about 50 years or so of the writer’s life and is a bit hit or miss, but when it hits, it’s very good. You have to like Nabokov both as a writer and as a crank I think to really enjoy, and I will provide some highlights. It begins with early reviews and literary assessments. It’s important to remember that while he was absolutely brilliant and well-read, he’s not trained as a literary critic, so a lot of his early criticism is formed off that kind of “I like good writing” school of thought. So the early stuff is mostly fine. It’s when he starts writing cranky letters to the editor being mad at comments in reviews and peevishly correcting factual mistakes when he really starts to shine.

The book takes on a whole new life, however, when he is doing a press tour (that lasted years) for the success of Lolita; that’s when he’s responded to dozens of interview questions on all sorts of topics and defending his novel against a lot of (mostly undeserved) criticism of the book.

Here’s some highlights:

“You could have found something more normal.

Of course. It’s interesting to ride a bike. But to do it without hands, without tires, without wheels, is still better, because more difficult.

Then would Lolita be above all a satire?

Not at all! It’s a very tender book. An American Map of Tenderness. An America of my own, imaginary: a maquette.

Is Lolita amoral?

On the contrary. It has a very moral moral: don’t harm children. Now, Humbert does. We might defend his feelings for Lolita, but not his perversity.”

And it goes on. It’s fun to watch him tear apart various authors, calling Faulkner and Camus “not artists” and saying Pasternak “makes Steinbeck look like a genius.”

And I like all those authors!

[Олена Бережна · Rating 5 out of 5]

потрясающая книга с эссе, отзывами на книги, письмами редакторам и интервью В. Набокова. О его личной жизни, о его творчестве, о том, как он воспринимал мнения читателей о своём творчестве и так далее. Он меня заинтересовал еще больше, хочу прочитать его мемуар.