Book review: 'Daughters of Yalta,' a must for Russian and WWII history buffs

Sex, lives, and history are all parts of the sagas in Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War by Catherine Grace Katz who describes the lives of three young women who attended the 1945 Yalta Conference with their dads, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Averill Harriman, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.

The conference was a meeting of Great Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, considered the "Big Three" World War II allies, to discuss strategies on Russia's Black Sea for the ending of the war and what to do with Poland and Germany.

For those who may not be historians like I am not, the book sheds light on the ending of WWII and the division of Germany and how countries' borders are sometimes determined as much as cutting a pie to pieces.

The Daughters were Sarah Churchill, 30, who later became an actress; Kathy Harriman, 27, who lived with her dad in Moscow for several years before Yalta and spoke fluent Russian which came in handy at the conference; and Anna Roosevelt, 38, who constantly worried about her father's health. (He died two months after the conference ended.)

The book details the day-to-day (sometimes hourly) activities the trio enjoyed (or tolerated): their day trips, room arrangements, negotiations, love affairs, late nights and social hours with fine descriptions of meals including a Russian dinner which started at 9 p.m. and ended at 1 a.m., with 45 toasts, 20 courses (fried horse mackerel was one dish), 24 male guests, and Mss. Churchill, Harriman, and Roosevelt.


(The Russians always tried to outdo themselves with huge splashes of generosity, omnipresent vodka and the modernization of a Romanov palace for use as lodging at the conference.)

Kathy Harriman knew about her dad's affair with Pamela Churchill (whom he married 26 years later); Sarah Churchill knew about her sister-in-law's affair with the ambassador; Anna knew about her father's affair with Lucy Mercer, as daughter even helped arrange trysts and attempted to keep the relationship hidden from her mother, Eleanor. (Talk about mother/daughter relationships!)

The Americans and Russians expected their rooms were bugged. They were. Soviet spy Alger Hiss, a representative of the U.S. at Yalta, figures predominately in the book.

FDR worked hard to preserve his relationship with Stalin which Churchill resisted. The Americans and the British wanted to stop Russia from overtaking Poland to also serve as notice for other East European nations.

FDR worked out a secret agreement with Stalin for the Soviets to declare war in the Pacific which they did two days after the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima August 6, 1945. The Japanese surrendered August 15, 1945.

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill both believed the conference was a success but worldwide criticism began almost immediately when it ended. French leader Charles de Gaulle was furious France was excluded from Yalta.

FDR looked exceedingly ill at the conference, and his constant smoking exacerbated his condition. When he died, Moscow honored his memory by hanging red flags with black borders throughout the city.

At the Washington History Seminar where Ms. Katz delivered her book in rapid-fire delivery last month (possibly trying to get as much in before her time expired), Allida Black, an Eleanor Roosevelt scholar and a panelist on the program asked Ms. Katz why she had mostly ignored ER in her book which Ms. Katz denied, but I have to agree with Dr. Black. Unlike the roles played by Clementine Churchill and Marie Harriman, mothers of the other two "daughters," "ER" commands little space.

Until I got going in the book, I thought (and hoped) Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, might be one of the main characters; nyet.

And it's hardly likely she would have been, said Serhii Plokhii, a professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard and another panelist at the WHS presentation.

At the time of the Yalta Conference, according to Dr. Plokhii, Svetlana was only19 and hardly one to be supported by her dad. Although she did speak English, she was traumatized as a teen to learn her mother had died from suicide. Svetlana had married in her teen years, and her father refused to meet the groom. It was not the best of times for father and daughter's relationship.

Neither Wikipedia nor History.com have any mention of the daughters on their Yalta pages nor does History.com list Averill Harriman.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until the end of the book that I discovered the listing of key delegates, but I found myself often using the essential map showing the lodging locations and the Black Sea and the Allies' meeting place. Thank you, author and publisher, for including!

It was difficult at times for me to keep the three women separate, and more in-depth biography about each at the beginning of the book would have helped and referencing them by whole names instead of first names only.

The book doesn't end with Yalta: Ms. Katz fills us in on the lives of the three women until their deaths; some, sad; some, happy and glamorous as is life, told in Sarah Churchill's autobiography Keep on Dancing, published in 1981, the year before she died, in Christopher Ogden's biography of Pamela Harriman, Life of the Party; and among the pages of Mother and Daughter: The Letters of Eleanor and Anna Roosevelt, edited by Bernard Asbell.

Biographies of Ms. Harriman and Ms. Roosevelt have yet to be published.

For the second Daughters' edition, I wish for photos of Clementine Churchill and Marie Harriman.

Ms. Katz said the publisher, Houghton Mifflin, became interested early on in her book and paid her expenses.  She spent 18 months conducting research, she said at the WHS, and 18 months writing.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Today is the 372nd anniversary of the beheading of King Charles I

  

This anniversary of a king's beheading is not to be forgotten by supporters who will lay wreaths at the statue of England's King Charles I (1600-1649) today, not far from his execution site, says the Royal Encyclopedia.

Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer lays out all the gory details of his death and his trial, followed 11 years later by the worldwide manhunt for the regicides, conducted by Charles's son King Charles II when royalty was restored to the throne in 1660.

With his back to the viewer, Charles I, seated in the center, faces the High Court of Justice in 1649/Wikpedia, public domain.Engraving from "Nalson's Record of the Trial of Charles I" in the British Museum. Plate 2 from A True copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice for the tryal of K. Charles I as it was read in the House of Commons and attested under the hand of Phelps, clerk to that infamous court / taken by J. Nalson Jan. 4, 1683 : with a large introduction. London: Printed by H.C. for Thomas Dring at the Harrow at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, 1684.

It was treasonous to house the king's killers or even think about killing him and so, off with his head (sometimes hers)! 

Which is what happened to at least ten of them.

Charles was not a good king, he was not a great king but a greedy king, a king who was arrogant, extravagant, conceited and, to top it off, married to a Roman Catholic.

It was his way or the highway when it came to wars, the Scots, religion, and Parliament. He treasured his vast art collection, funded by his subjects about whom he cared little.

All the regicides were ordered to surrender, and some did, thinking their lives would be spared. Hell hath no fury like a son whose father has been beheaded.

Some were beheaded anyway, confound those promises!

In the first regicide trial, that of Colonel (later, Major General) Thomas Harrison, the judge ruled:

"'...you shall be hanged by the neck, and being alive shall be cut down, and your privy members to be cut off, your entrails to be taken out of your body, and (you living) the same to be burnt before your eyes, and your head to be cut off, your body to be divided into four quarters...'"

to be disposed at the King's pleasure.

Well!

And that wasn't the end of it.

Preceding the butchering, the guilty were hauled in a sledge on the way to the gallows, wearing only a shirt to better receive the tossed objects and insults directed at them by Londoners and to ease the butcher's job of cutting off their privates after they had regained consciousness from hanging.

Until this reading, I had never thought too much about "drawn and quartered," but Readers, it was real and literal!

(The Capitol Hill insurrectionists should be thankful this is 2021 and not 1660 when the "regicides" were hunted throughout England and beyond.)

Head for the hills, man!

And that's what some did, to the Netherlands (those wretched Dutch who turned in the prey) and to New America where a hunt for Col. Edward Whalley and Lt. William Goffe was n'er successful, be that the two were hidden often by government officials and private individuals, on farms, in the wilderness, in basements (two years) until Mr. Whalley died and Mr. Goffe (his son-in-law) was never traced to his final "settlement" which, the author suggests, just might be in Virginia.

King Charles II was so mad that his New World subjects and huntsmen could not find "the most prominent" of his father's killers, Whalley and Goffe, that he took away New Haven's independence and made it part of Connecticut. Take that, you blarney killers!

(Streets in New Haven still bear the regicides' names like 10 Downing Street in London, named after a "first-rate traitor," one of King Charles II's men, who tricked the Dutch and captured three regicides, including his former commander. Samuel Pepys called Downing [doesn't deserve a first-name listing] "a perfidious rogue.")

Then there was Dame Alice Lisle, a mother of 11 and in her late 60s who had harbored two regicides and was the wife of the regicide John Lisle, already dead by 21 years, killed by an assassin in Switzerland, but don't hold that against her, and they did.

Off with her head!

The judge became part of her prosecution and the jury debated all of 15 minutes, and Dame Alice, a community pillar, became the last woman beheaded by order of the English government. (Her sentence had been commuted from burning at the stake, the usual death sentence given to women.)

One famous regicide (or regicide supporter, depending on what you read), and still known to us today was John Milton (1608-1674), the poet who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a few weeks and penalized financially, but he was one of the lucky ones who kept his head. (Sometimes, the writing profession can be a lifeline.)

Charles II had the body of Oliver Cromwell (the chief insurrectionist who died in 1658) and others dug up, hung at the gallows, beheaded, and spiked on poles for the thousands to see, a lesson to all you commoners who even thought about killing a king. (Wikipedia's list of the regicides excludes Poet Milton.)

Reader, if you can get through all of the names at the beginning of the book, you've overcome the most boring parts, and the pace quickens to the actual trial of the king. (The index is excellent.)

And whether at the beginning you're unsure if you support the king or the regicides, by the end you'll be rooting for the latter as did I and also, the author who dedicates the book as tribute to them (and "Charlotte").

As usual, I am asking, please, for a glossary of the players with brief biographical sketches to help the reader keep them straight, and a map of escape routes would be useful, too.

Who's got the movie rights? I want to see it, but, no gory parts, please!

The chase! The chase!

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: Bob Woodward's 'Rage'

Readers, he's much worse than you thought.

The first quarter of Rage is rather ho-hum, nothing much new as Bob Woodward sets the stage.  Momentum picks up when the Trump interviews begin.

This, with Michael Cohen's Disloyal, serve up a man as scatter-brained, tempestuous, vindictive, immature, hateful and superficial as one can possibly imagine any fictional character to be, but he is real, and, praise God, soon to leave Washington, D.C. for, we hope, forever.  Goodbye, you n'er do well!  2021 is looking better and better.

These books confirm my observation that Trump is not that smart. He's more like a toddler throwing temper tantrums. It's all for him or nothing. "I want my way! I want my way!" he bellows, and like a subservient parent, the media gives him "his way" (Cohen). The media elected him, says Cohen. Wait, this is a review of Woodward's book, not Cohen's. Where was I? (Now on to Bolton's.)

Interspersed in Rage are sections on Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, of course, plays a key role as coronavirus takes the spotlight and control from Trump and his sycophants.  The revelations about covid-19's strangulation of the U.S. brings one of the book's few humorous parts when Dr. Fauci describes Trump on page 354:  "His attention span is like a minus number.... His sole purpose is to get re-elected." 

No wonder Trump kicks up a fuss when he loses!  He will not believe it, and no one will tell the emperor he has no clothes.  He's nothing but a blunderbuss who recalcitrant Retrumplicans (Chris Cuomo) are afraid to challenge since the bully may sick a sickophant (sic!) their way! 

Mr. Woodward and Trump give serious discussion to the possibility that China deliberately set the U.S. on virus fire mimicking the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Mr. Woodward's epilogue ends:

 "When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion:  Trump is the wrong man for the job."  

For a second Rage edition, may I suggest the addition of a leaderboard for readers like me who find it somewhat difficult to keep all the players straight.   

Also, a correction for the location of the Feb. 11, 2020 event (page 244) found in "Source Notes" (p. 411) with Dr. Fauci at the Aspen Institute: It was held here, at Aspen's offices in Washington, D.C. not in Colorado . I know because I was there, and although unlikely, it is possible that the panel presented the same subject on the same day at the Aspen offices in Colorado. (One of the panelists was Ron Klain, later appointed to be President-Elect Biden's chief of staff. Also, it was the same day coronavirus got its official name, covid-19.) 

About the number of presidents (p. 391):  Although there have been 45 presidencies, there have only been 44 presidents since Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897).

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: Michael Cohen's 'Disloyal' is must-read

Dear Michael Cohen,

I waited weeks to get your book on the reserve list at the public library and told everyone  when I got in the middle of it, that it's a "must."  I have bought two copies for Christmas gifts, one for my Trumper son, a new attorney, so he can see how you developed and used your lawyerly skills, and the other for my pal, Kim.

At the end just now, all I could say was "WOW." Right on, bro'!  I hope you earn billions from sales.

Whether or not you like Mr. Cohen for ratting on his Boss Man, this is must reading (for the hardcore).

Although no collaborator is mentioned for the book, I suspect one existed  since Disloyal  is exceedingly well assembled and flows mightily down the Trump sewage tank, telling all, an insight into Trump World which pretty well matches the sense we've gained from four years of watching what is perceived as White House chaos and confirmed to be just that by Mr. Cohen.

Disloyal, A Memoir, is a page-turner, all right.

That Ted Cruz can even stand to speak to Trump or be near him after the merciless attack Trump and Team made on Mr. Cruz's father, is shocking. It all began with National Enquirer's David Pecker's assertion that a man photographed with Lee Harvey Oswald bore a resemblance to Mr. Cruz's father and away the conspirators flew.  (Mr. Cruz was a preacher who got under the Trump team's skin.)  Beyond the Enquirer, the story failed to launch until Trump ignited it on, where else? Fox.

Or, the Trumps' creation of birtherism is disgusting, pure and simple, all lies, fitting for this administration, but how it "birthed" the slander is astonishing.

Mr. Cohen says the media elected Trump in 2016 with free press every time Trump did anything remotely outrageous which, as we know, occurs daily.  Often, more than once.

Melania knows her husband is a cheater but Trump tells Mr. Cohen, "I can always get another wife."  

That Michael Cohen's beloved family has held firm to their husband and father in the wake of all the Trump cheats and lies is testimony to a family's endurance and will to combat Evil.

Mr. Cohen lays it all out and takes no pride in his fall to hell where he says the Trump cult resides, in adoration of the master, unable to stop gulping Trump's Kool-Aid.  Mr. Cohen accurately predicted Trump would never leave office willingly or with any traditional grace which cannot be a surprise to anyone.

BTW, I read most of Brian Stelter's Hoax, but more than halfway through, I asked myself:  "Why do you care about Fox?" and ended it right then and there.  Too many anonymous quotes are found herein, but I love Mr.  Stelter's Sunday show, Reliable Sources, and would not miss it. I wonder why CNN didn't use him on E-night.

Next up: Bob Woodward's Rage 

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Nyet! Book review: Candace Fleming's 'Family Romanov'

On July 17, 1918 the Romanov family of seven and their servants were murdered at this site in Yekaterinburg, Russia which was then the Ipatiev House. In later years, the Politburo and Premier Boris Yeltsin resisted the growing sacredness of the site and the pilgrims who visited the Ipatiev House and ordered it torn down in 1977. In its place, one of the largest churches in Russia, the Church on the Blood was erected.  It opened in 2003/Patricia Leslie

This statue honors the memory of the Romanov children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei at Ganina Yama where the bodies of the children, their parents, and servants were thrown into a pit, 9.5 miles from the murder site/Patricia Leslie

Lily fields at the Ganina Yama pit where the Bolsheviks threw the bodies which they burned with acid for two days before moving them to their second graves, a field 4.5 miles away. When this picture was made 100 years after the family assassinations, large photographs of family members hung on the wooden walkway which surrounded the lily field. Above are two of the Romanov daughters. Every year at the Church of the Blood in Yekaterinburg, thousands gather for services on the anniversary of the murders and then walk four hours to the iron pit at Ganina Yama for more ceremony/Patricia Leslie

The lily field at Ganina Yama with Nicholas II pictured at far left/Patricia Leslie

Fearing the Whites would find the bodies, the Bolsheviks moved them 4.5 miles from Ganina Yama to a field across these railroad tracks, the second burial site. This site was discovered in the late 1970s and kept secret until the Russian government changed in 1989/Patricia Leslie

 The second burial site of the Romanovs/Patricia Leslie

The entrance to the Chapel of St. Catherine the Martyr inside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg, the third and last burial site of the Romanovs/Patricia Leslie

The Chapel of St. Catherine the Martyr, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg, with the remains of the Romanovs and their servants, now saints of the Russian Orthodox Church/Patricia Leslie

At the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg/Patricia Leslie



It's as if a publisher ordered a writer to find the most negative research possible and turn it into a book, and that's exactly what Candace Fleming did with her 2014 The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia.

Fleming and her team found all things bad they could possibly locate about the Romanovs and then packed them into her book. Only when the family begins the last leg of their journey to Siberia and certain death, does Fleming show any sympathy and, maybe a little remorse, over the outcome.  

She describes the five children as "young savages" whose parents cared little about their children's education (not true). She ridicules an eight-year-old's behavior (show me a perfect eight-year-old), and the grammar of a 13-year-old. Tsk, tsk.

From criticizing the children to sneering at the family's pets, clothing, languages, childcare, schooling and illnesses, Fleming goes overboard to paint the family as n'er do wells, dilettantes with nothing more to do than smoke (Nicholas), frown and lay around (Alexandra), ignore their offspring and fail to keep up with their studies (the children).  (I suppose Fleming has never been a parent.) 

What was good about the Romanovs?  Oh, yes, the women played nursemaid during the War.

Even the speaker's condescending attitude makes its way onto the pages while she reads the book, no doubt given instruction to read in a haughty manner. She succeeds!

Designed to influence young readers, it's no wonder adults are not Fleming's market since anyone with a smidgen of Romanov knowledge would quickly recognize this portrayal as a lopsided, petty picture of a family sacrificed on the altar of politics.

On her website Fleming carries a trailer for the book which makes light of the family and their plight, accompanied by whimsical music.

Hundreds of books have been written about the family and this sad chapter of Russian history which elicit our sympathy and attempt to understand rather than ridicule. Who else does this? It may be the first time Fleming has been compared to Trump.
patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: 'Justice in Moscow' by George Feifer

If Russian scholar and cultural historian George Feifer (1934-2019) had not died, it's unlikely I would have ever known about his book, Justice in Moscow (1964), which I found listed in Harrison Smith's engaging obituary of Mr. Feifer in the Washington Post last November. 


The book is all about the lower court system in Russia in the 1960s, and if the subject sounds dull, believe me, the way Mr. Feifer writes, it's anything but.

Written from an American perspective (Mr. Feifer was born in Paterson, N.J. and educated in the U.S.), Justice was one of several books Mr. Feifer wrote about Russia, including two semi-autobiographical novels. 

He first went to Russia in 1959 as a guide for an American automotive show and then later as an exchange 
student. That led to his affinity for and writing about Russian everyday life and the characters he discovered and befriended (one of whom he married and later divorced).
 
The book's dialogue can run for pages, but Mr. Feifer's excellent writing never leaves a reader wondering who is speaking. He brings the courtroom to life with his personal descriptions of domestic conflicts, minor crimes, and harsh penalties. (Shouts from the audience were [are?] permissible.)

Disagreements about childcare, living arrangements, alcohol's effects, and financial responsibilities filled the courts. Grandmothers often were handed parental roles while parents continued their flings. Marriage then (and now? Russia's divorce rate in 2016 was 60%, meaning there were more divorces than marriages) seemed like a sometime-thing which few took seriously.

It's a rare day in Russia when there are no weddings/Photo by Patricia Leslie, Tsarskoye Selo, 2018


Courts were open to anyone who wanted to come and see. On the occasions when the courtrooms were crowded and no seats were available, Mr. Feifer's dress (coat and tie) got him in. (Pages 200-201) 

Before trial, a two-to-four months' wait in jail for lesser crimes was not unusual. Many charged remained free, but Russia had no patience with those who failed to contribute to society. (88-89)

There was "the Soviet tendency to set an example by punishing the more affluent wrongdoers more severely. In the People's Court it is poor work in the factory, rather than a poor purse, that puts a defendant at a disadvantage." (79)

"Hooliganism" (being lazy without contributing to society) was a crime frequently mentioned. Russian citizens then could not understand the "American way," i.e., that many Americans live at societal expense. Mr. Feifer quotes a cleaning woman: "I just don't see how you can justify people living off capital instead of sweat." (198)  (A label commonly applied was known as "the Parasite Law.")

It was assumed that most of the accused were to be found guilty (216-17), and not every accused (save juveniles and mentally ill persons) were represented by lawyers. 

Mr. Feifer often observed "palsy-walsy" relationships between prosecutors and judges in courtrooms where the accused had no legal representation!

In some cases, the defendant's attorney was so harsh on the client, the attorney came across as a prosecutor, and in one courtroom, the attorney stated he didn't believe his own client! 

Many defendants relied on "the investigator" who supposedly acted as a researcher of the crime. Individuals had little protection in the courts which Mr. Feifer blamed on Peter the Great, Nicholas I, "and even the Moguls," rather than Stalin. (102)

Stalin's tomb at the Kremlin Wall, Red Square, Moscow/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

At Red Square, Moscow/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

Catherine the Great's gift of Peter the Great's statue welcomes visitors to St. Petersburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

Unlike American legal hierarchy, Russian judges often abandoned the judiciary to become lawyers since the pay was about the same and attorneys' hours were shorter with opportunities to earn more "on the side." (234)

Mr. Feifer found lawyers to be better dressed than judges, friendlier to strangers (like himself), and full of questions about American legal practice. 

He observed many scars and amputations among Russian lawyers whose World War II experiences were evident.  "When these Russians talked about disarmament, there was a ring of honesty to their appeals." (237-38)


In the early 60s punishment for "economic crimes" was treated in the extreme. Despite earlier codes which defined sentencing for "currency speculation" to several years in prison, upper courts could change punishments to executions which they did. (247-248)

But rather than punishment and in "spirit of dedication to the Fatherland and to Communism," the book cites the primary purpose of Soviet courts was to educate the people about laws, discipline, and the respect of others related to "the rules of socialist living and behavior." (107)

Sixty years later and one wonders how this 1960s version compares to present-day Russia. With a thriving bureaucracy, it is doubtful much has changed.
 
A great book which I obtained through Fairfax County's interlibrary loan program.

Another wedding in Russia/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: Vladimir Nabokov's interviews and more

For any Vladimir Nabokov fan, this is "must read."

Brian Boyd, assisted by Anastasia Tolstoy, has chronologically assembled Mr. Nabokov's "Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor" which span 56 years and include the last interviews conducted the year Nabokov died (1899-1977).

His LTEs presented here are ones he wrote when annoyed by a reviewer's mistakes.

About two-thirds of the book are the interviews which fascinated me more than the essays which, I must confess, most of them I skipped (and the references to and mentions of lepidopterology since a lepidopterist like Mr. Nabokov, I am not.) (Mr. Boyd has written a separate book entitled Nabokov's Butterflies.)

Demands for interviews with Nabokov "exploded" after the publication of Lolita (1955) which Nabokov said in numerous interviews was based on total fiction and originated with a chimpanzee. (Source? "Wet market"? I had to ask.) (Editor Boyd claims to have omitted duplicate questions posed by interviewers but this question appears over and over, along with "How do you spend your day, Mr. Nabokov?" All answers, intriguing, and duplications, not annoying.)

It took months for Hollywood to convince Mr. Nabokov to write the screenplay for Lolita. He was immensely pleased with the end product. (West End Cinema screened it last year. Please request West End to show it again. The ticket agent told me the movie was moved to a larger theatre since more ticket sales were sold than expected.)
 
For his interviews, reporters had to submit questions in advance and Nabokov prepared answers in writing.

He claimed he was a terrible speaker and wrote on notecards while in the bath tub or standing at a lectern.

The only difference between a short story and a novel, he said, is the novel is longer and took him about a year to compose 200 pages; two weeks to write a ten-page short story (p. 409).

Nabokov has been described as the best American prose writer, and Lolita proves it.

In a 1974 interview he expressed that "climatic changes" could be more harmful to "butterfly life" than pollution (p. 429).

His favorite Russian writers were Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, he said in a 1974 interview: "I will not discuss my contemporaries since my rule is never to speak of living writers in public" nor "living readers" of which there are some "real geniuses" and "quite a few asses." (P. 438).

In another 1974 interview, he said the writers he most admired were Edmund White, John Updike, J.D. Salinger, and "some of Truman Capote's stuff." (P. 447)
His family fled the Nazis, arriving in the U.S. in 1940. Nabokov grew to love America, especially the West (Los Angeles) and while speaking fondly of it, had many harsh words always to say about his native Russia, often expressing no desire to ever return to the land seized by the Bolsheviks and run by the Soviets at the time.

In the U.S. Nabokov wrote and taught at various colleges (one of his students was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.) until the late 1950s when he and his wife, Vera, whom he married in 1925, returned to Europe. They took up residency in a hotel in Switzerland, planning to return to America at some point, he said in a 1972 interview (p. 415), but "I detest planes" and boats take "a long time." 

They never made it back.

Several times the St. Petersburg native declared himself "an American writer" (p. 416), althought his first books were written in Russian.  In a 1972 interview, he noted that his books were banned in Russia (until 1986), "but copies sneak in there all the time." He and his son, Dmitri (1934 - 2012), translated Lolita into Russian.

He cared not for Sigmund Freud ("has caused much harm, and his disciples have made much money," [p. 456], calling Freud "a comic author," [p. 468]), nor did Nabokov think highly of works by F. Scott Fitzgerald ("I don't remember anything of Fitzgerald's writings," [p. 476]).

The importance of his wife, Vera, to his writing success cannot be overstated. She may have been his "everything" but she was not a ghost writer, the couple said more than once. (She shows up often in the interviews, coaxing him to do this or that; correcting him.) Stacy Schiff's biography about her won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

Think, Write, Speak is one of those books I am sad to have already finished. You want it to go on. And on....

The house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899 and lived with his family until 1917 when they fled Russia and the Bolsheviks. Open for tourists unless, of course, it's the height of the tourist season when it is closed four days for maintenance. Located near St. Isaac's Cathedral/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 The house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A plaque at the house where Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 
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