Letters to Vera by Vladimir Nabokov
Letters. I've written them, years ago, long ones on paper thin blue airmail paper that wouldn't reach their destination for weeks, sometimes months. I can't remember the last time I wrote a letter (or received one) but letters remain, and the ones written by writers who are set firmly in the canon, are there for all of us. Collected in this volume are the letters Nabokov wrote between 1923 and 1944 to to his wife, to whom he was married for over half a century, and they are beautiful in every sense of the word. He expresses his love: "My sweet, sweet love, my joy, my sunny rainbow"; he tells her about eating a triangle of cheese; scolds her for not writing him enough; tells her about his traveling; asks her about arrangements for dinner, for moving furniture. Nabokov's letters elevate the mundane and also provide a glimpse into another time. The book includes a chronology, notes, reproduced photos, and is luscious enough to lure a reader to sit down and read continuously, but it also invites opening to any page, anywhere, and reading a letter, or a line, or several pages. This is the kind of book that should be off the shelf, ready to be discovered.
