Nabokov and Cinderella
Why writers aspiring to write in a second language should avoid the “Strong Opinions”
You would think the famous author of “Lolita” was the last person to have difficulties in writing in English. The literary aristocrat Vladimir Nabokov was fluent in Russian and English from infancy, thanks in particular to the English governess in family’s employ, who later worked for the Tsar’s children. At the age of five, Nabokov added French to his toolbox.
Nevertheless, “Strong Opinions”, the compilation of interviews and letters, meticulously edited by Nabokov himself, is full of the author’s self-critique. “My complete switch from Russian prose to English prose was exceedingly painful — like learning anew to handle things after losing seven or eight fingers in an explosion.” “…that was a very difficult kind of switch… I had to abandon my natural language, my natural idiom, my rich, infinitely rich and docile Russian tongue, for a second-rate brand of English.”
If even a ”genius and distinguished author” — as Nabokov introduces himself in the foreword — was reduced to second rate English, what chances would a regular human have in adopting a new language? Moreover, if “an American writer, born in Russia and educated in England” couldn’t master English, then who was I to dare to address others in a foreign tongue? This is the notion I have lived by since relocating to North America and leaving my aspirations and hopes behind. In Russia, I had two books published at that time and planned to keep writing in Russian.
So, writing in English was never in my plans. Like many Russian-speaking immigrants, I could read and translate, but my practical English was non-existent. The Soviet educational system was more interested in knowing what “ideological enemies” say than interacting with them. Accordingly, I had no idea how to ask for a fork in a restaurant or have a conversation with my son’s kindergarten teacher. I understood what was said, but words failed to form a coherent sentence in my brain. The English language was as vast and beautiful as an ocean, the trouble was I didn’t know how to swim.
In 2007 I stood in front of my local library confused and sad. I will never read well enough in English to need a library card, I thought. As it happened, never was a tricky word. After three years of pure struggle, I’d read my first adult-sized novel by Mary Higgins. Two years more, I found out that Somerset Maugham had a whining voice, and Dostoevsky in English sounded less erratic than in Russian.
The next step in claiming English as my own was a birthday present given to me by my husband. Without my knowledge, he enrolled me in a creative writing program at the University of Toronto. By the end of the course, I wrote a short first-person story and read it from the podium to an audience of a hundred people. It took me longer than I'd expected because my fellow students interrupted me with laughs. Afterward one of the instructors congratulated me on “being funny in a different language”, a compliment that would sound crude to the refined ear of brilliant Nabokov but stirred hope as light as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings in my unsophisticated soul.
In November 2018 the Globe and Mail printed my first ever story in English, which was later picked up by Reader’s Digest Canada. It felt wonderful — as if I was a real-life Cinderella, a comparison that would make my literary idol cringe, no doubt. And that’s when I finally realized, I’m no Nabokov; I don't “write mainly for artists, fellow-artists and follow-artists”. I don’t believe that “the heart is a remarkably stupid reader”. Then why should I meter myself by standards that are not mine? I'm okay with my third-rate English, as long as others are interested in my stories.
Regardless, I have a new role model in mind. I want to be like Cinderella when I grow old: hard-working, good-humored, well-dressed, and in love.
