He was right about their appearance on this continent, it seems, and, according to the NY Times, we have the Russian Revolution to thank for his not becoming a full-time lepidopterist.
It fascinates me -- the juxtaposition between brilliant writer and lepidopterist. Why that should be more striking than poet and doctor (William Carlos Williams) or poet and insurance executive (Wallace Stevens), I am not sure. Maybe because Nabokov did not need it as his day job? It was not his day job, but another thing he loved. Butterflies are gorgeous, but he killed a lot of them, loving them as he did. Kind of like Humbert Humbert "killed" the thing he loved...creepy.
1 comment:
I always thought butterfly collecting was odd.
beth
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