'To Take Israel’s Side in All Political Matters'

What’s the difference between a crank and a wise man? It’s a trick question, of course. Often, there’s little difference. Think of the Hebrew prophets. They were seldom “people persons.” They could be annoying – in a good way – but there’s no mistaking their harsh devotion to the truth. Graciousness and truth aren't always compatible. 

When he was interviewed in 1970 by Nurit Beretzky, a writer with the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv of Tel Aviv, Nabokov was in fine cancel-inducing form. Beretzky asks, “What is boring for you? What is most amusing for you?” The novelist, a veteran of the Lenin and Hitler regimes, replies:

 

“Oppression. I am ready to accept any regime – Socialistic, Royalistic, Janitorial, – provided mind and body are free.”

 

He moves on: “Primitivism in art: ‘abstract’ daubs, symbolic bleak little plays, junk sculpture, 'avant-garde' verse, and other crude banalities. Clubs, unions, fraternities, etc. (In the course of these last twenty-five years I must have turned down some twenty offers of glamorous membership).”

 

Few writers are as allergic to herd-thinking and vulgar collectivism in any form, and to their linguistic counterparts, clichés: “Causes, demonstrations, processions. ‘Concise’ dictionaries, “abridged” manuals. Journalistic clichés: ‘The moment of truth,’ for example, or the execrable ‘dialogue.’”

 

Beretzky asks, “What do you think of the situation in the Middle East?” The apolitical Nabokov replies:

 

"There exist several subjects in which I have expert knowledge: certain groups of butterflies, Pushkin, the art of chess problems, translation from and into English, Russian and French, word-play, novels, insomnia, and immortality. But among those subjects, politics is not represented. I can only reply to your question about the Near East in a very amateur way: I fervently favor total friendship between America and Israel and am emotionally inclined to take Israel’s side in all political matters.”

 

How refreshing this statement would sound today as the allure of anti-Semitism surges around the world. To be an anti-Semite is to repudiate civilization. Nabokov was the most civilized of men.

 

[The Nabokov interview is collected in Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor (ed. Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, Knopf, 2019).]