Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius

Rating:
Summary: Beauty and Science
Review: At first blush this book appears to be a footnote to a writer who had an eccentric hobby. Since Professor Boyd's definitive biography some may consider that there was little else to explore. The scientific achievements of Vladimir Nabakov were not lost but perhaps overwhelmed in the literary story.
Nabakov's Blues does more than just dust off the lepidoptry papers. The book is in the final assessment a celebration of how science and research are never a sterile academic exercise but a reflection of greater issues of the beauty and elegance of intellect at work.
During the course of shedding light on the under recognized research we are reminded that the mundane work of classifying and sorting often underpins more glamorous tasks, but are also given insight into the many quiet achievers in science, who often take considerable personal risks to complete research which is part of a greater whole and leaves them only as a name in a arid catalogue.
We are too prone to identify the heros and not those who without clamor or boasting actually do the work.
Nabakov himself never "promoted" his science although he made it clear that his butterflies were an integral part of his life. We grow to specialise and those who can travel in literary circles as well as science are rare. The authors Johnson and Coates do themselves demonstrate that they too can travel the literary salons and the research laboratories, and write an elegant supplement to Professor Boyd that transcends that status to become a commentary on the man who was in many ways a true renaissance figure.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed This Book Immensely
Review: I got this book for Christmas and found it fascinating. The authors have done a great job of melting together not only many aspects of this genius's multi-faceted gifts-- science, literature, and surviving a tumultuous life-- but of successfully recounting to the reader what is important about it. I was proud of myself to plow though a lot of scientific information and feel that I was not only learning as I went but learning about the fascinating story of this man and the persons who followed on his heels to complete his important work. And, to think that he became a major literary celebrity at the same time! Some of us don't have time to even get a few books read! The story line carries this book along; when I ran into too much detail about the butterflies I just skipped gently ahead to where the story line picked up again. This was an informative and fun read-- amusing in many places too. I've decided to recommend it to my son who has to do some science reading for school. This is a good book from a lot of points of view. Thanks for helping make my holiday.

Rating:
Summary: A stylish mix of Indiana Jones and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Review: I had heard about this book before its release and I was not disappointed. The authors seem to have an uncanny sense about Nabokov's oeuvre. I have long had an interest in Nabokov's writing but was fascinated by the prospect of a book that would finally tell the story of his work, and its importance, in science. What is great about this book is that it reads with a plot, from the beginning-- which tells Nabokov's story as a scientist before his fame in literature-- to its end, which tells the story of the scientists who completed Nabokov's work nearly 50 years later. The latter includes exciting treks across remote areas of Latin America in search of Nabokov's Blues. The authors also tell us about Nabokov's fascination with butterflies within his own literature and, at the end of their book, provide what appears to be the first major assessment of Nabokov the scientist. In their opinion his contribution was far more important than ever previously appreciated. A great book.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Little Book
Review: I picked up the paperback of this book because I'd heard about it when it was in hardback. For anyone who is fascinated by science, literature, history, sociology and much more, they will find the blend of story, information and insight in this book satisfying and enlightening. Its never gets dull because you're reading about a historical literary figure, and his biography, tons of information about science and exploration, the scientists who completed the formative work Nabokov began at Harvard before becoming famous after Lolita, and how this all fits together in todays biodiversity crisis and squabbles over whether Nabokov was really a bona fide scientist or just an boyish aficionado. I felt I had learned a great deal from this book but also enjoyed it. It is a great blend of historical fact, new stories, and insight the into world's environmental dilemmas. I also had no idea of the complex ways in which Nabokov interwove butterflies and their images and symbols into his novels.

Rating:
Summary: In Pursuit
Review: Nabokov's Blues by Kurt Johnson and Stephen Coates is a testament to the dogged pursuit of their art by basic scientists such as Drs. Vladimir Nabokov and Kurt Johnson who continue their efforts with minimal funding and little glamour, and the roles played by happenstance and eccentricity in substantial discoveries. The adventure stories spun by Stephen Jay Gould in Wonderful Life and Jonathan Weiner in The Beak of the Finch in high profile, well-financed disciplines, and by Mark Jaffe in And No Birds Sing and now by Johnson and Coates in Nabokov's Blues in lesser known arenas, demonstrate how events and personalities conspire. Johnson and Coates capture this process and invite the reader into this adventure as the scientists and their colleagues pursue the magic of butterflies. Nabokov's Blues is an engaging retelling of the exciting set of adventures, in the field and in museums, begun by one of the great storytellers of the 20th Century, Vladimir Nabokov. With the disclaimer of a member of a class described by the reviewer as "eccentrics and polymaths" who played a minor role in Kurt Johnson's great adventure, I cannot disagree more strongly with Richard Conniff's assertion in his February 20,2000 review in The New York Times Book Review that "the authors fail to capture the full wonder and oddity of the enterprise." This is exactly what the authors accomplish.

Rating:
Summary: insight into science and art
Review: NABOKOV'S BLUES

Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius. Kurt Johnson, Steve Coates. Cambridge, MA: Zoland Books, 1999. Pp 372 $27.00

In his Field Guide to the Butterflies of North America Alexander Klots wrote of the genus Lycaeides that "the recent work of Nabokov has entirely rearranged the classification of this genus." The response of Vladimir Nabokov, the acclaimed author of Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, was "That's real fame. That means more than anything a literary critic might say."

Nabokov was born in April 1899 and his reputation as a leading literary figure of the century he was almost born in seems secure; the Random House Modern Library proclaimed Lolita the fourth greatest novel of the century and the memoir Speak, Memory, the eighth greatest work of non-fiction, thus Nabokov was the only author to feature in the top ten of both lists. It is well known that Nabokov had a strong interest in lepidoptery. Often however it is dismissed as mere dilettantism, or seen by academics and critics as a source of Freudian symbolism. Nabokov himself detested such phenomena as the crass observation that "insect" and "incest" are anagrams, and attacked "the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world of Freud, with its crankish quest for sexual symbols." Full-time lepidopterists were either ignorant of Nabokov's work or regarded it as amateur dabblings; perhaps they also felt resentment at this part-timer who was nevertheless dubbed "the most famous lepidopterist in the world."

Kurt Johnson is a lepidopterist associated with the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, while Steve Coates is an editor at The New York Times. This, their first book, fights on many fronts; it tries to restore Nabokov's scientific reputation and give some account of lepidoptery's place in his life and literary work; pleads for the oft-ignored discipline of taxonomy, more important now than ever in the light of the crisis in biodiversity; and is an exciting scientific adventure story ranging from the "incorrigible continent" of South America to the squabbles of the world of academia.

Nabokov's scientific work belongs in every sense in a different era; he represents one of the last of the gentleman naturalists. Lepidoptery was an interest inherited from his father, a prominent Russian liberal assassinated in Berlin in 1922. It remained constant throughout the upheaval of the Russian Revolution and exile in Cambridge, Germany and France. On coming to the United States in May 1940 he soon visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with certain puzzling specimens from Europe. In Autumn 1941 he visited Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and found the collections in disarray, and first as a volunteer and then as a part-time research fellow in entomology he endeavoured to straighten it out. This was typical of the war years; considerable lacunae existed in academia and were filled with available workers with little regard for their professional training.

Nabokov's paper Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae is the key in the reassessment of his position in science. It was a pioneering classification of the Latin American Polyommatini, a diverse group of Blue butterflies with members from the tip of Chile to the Caribbean. This paper established a broad framework of genera for later researchers to insert new species. In 1948 he left the Museum of Comparative Zoology to become Professor of Russian and European Literature at Cornell University. This marked the end of Nabokov's formal association with the world of lepidoptery, and with the publication of Lolita Nabokov's fame became a two-edged sword as far as his scientific reputation was concerned.

In the 1980s a series of expeditions to Las Abejas, a jungle enclave near Dominican Republic's Haitian border, began to turn up new specimens of what were known as Blues. Over the next decade and a half, Johnson and other lepidopterists travelled all over South America, becoming increasingly aware of the crucial relevance of Nabokov's classification system to the multiplicity of new species they discovered. In these chapters the authors make us aware of the biodiversity crisis which means species are becoming extinct faster than science can ascertain their existence. The humble place of the taxonomist, seen by some as a drone of biology, is scarcely deserved, considering the importance of this work. The authors are also at pains not to judge Nabokov by the standards of today; some of his beliefs on mimicry and evolution appear scientifically unorthodox, but reflect that when he was working these issues were still being resolved.

This book will provide both enjoyment and enlightenment to any reader interested not only in Nabokov but in the relationship of the arts and sciences, the current state of natural science and the biodiversity crisis. The crucial question for Johnson and Coates is "Was Nabokov a true scholar of Lepidoptera, or merely a dilettante whose contributions were remarkable?" The casual observer might wonder how "mere" a dilettante would make "remarkable" contributions, but the question is deeper; seeing Nabokov as a scientist gives the understanding of his life and works a whole new dimension.

The authors seem to suggest that a healthy relation between CP Snow's "two cultures" requires not a facile "unity" but a deep appreciation of both the humanities and the sciences. Nabokov's quote "Does there not exist a high ridge where the mountainside of 'scientific' knowledge joins the opposite slope of 'artistic' imagination" is often quoted in this context. Far from an airy abstraction, this refers to a specific example; Nabokov's 1952 review of a book centred around the drawings of John James Audubon; Nabokov found Audobon's butterfly drawings inept, and wondered "can anyone draw something he knows nothing about?" Nabokov considered a knowledge of natural science indispensable for a truly cultured sensibility; he was shocked when his literature students at Cornell University were ignorant of the names of local trees and birds.

We see Chekhov and William Carlos Williams as doctors and as writers; we see Primo Levi as a chemist and as a writer. Johnson and Coates convincingly try to persuade us that Nabokov should be seen as a writer and as a lepidopterist. Nabokov himself said "whenever I allude to butterflies in my novels ... it remains pale and false and does not really express what I want it to express, what, indeed, it can only express in the special scientific language of my entomological papers."

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Delightful Account
Review: The authors have created an absolutely perfect and delightful work on Nabokov's butterflies and all the resulting interfaces. Nabokov has always preoccupied me and, fortunately, I also have a deep interest in nature - particularly in butterflies and birds. Thus, this book, which develops everything from Nabokov's biography and literary use of butterfly and other nature motifs to their place in modern science and today's biodiversity crisis, was wonderfully eye-opening and informative. It's my bet that few people appreciate how big a story Nabokov's science actually is. It is not only a major part of his biography, previously untold, but also a linkage of his life's scientific work to major questions confronting scientists today. As with his literature, Nabokov turns out to have been a pioneer. It is only a pity that Nabokov did not have two lifetimes, one for literature and one for science.

Rating:
Summary: A very interesting and entertaining book!
Review: This book is a fun read for anyone with an interest in the personal histories that shape authors, in biology and/or in the environment and ecology. It provides great insight into the scientific passion that moved one of the more interesting figures in literature, and nicely weaves the tale of Nabokov's first passion, lepidoptery, providing many interesting biographical details (including his wonderful sense of humor!), and the modern day story of the scientists who continued his work and discovered that his scientific legacy was truly as important and inventive as his literature. It discusses the science in a way that is interesting and easily understood by the non-scientist, but does not diminish the nature of the scientific information conveyed. In addition, it shows how the science impacted the literature. How interesting that a butterfly-gathering trip would provide the backdrop for Lolita! I found this book to be very interesting, informative and entertaining, and I highly recommend it.