Lips to Lips

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lips to Lips is a short story written in Russian by Vladimir Nabokov in Berlin in or about 1931. It was first published in 1956 as part of the collection Vesna v Fialte. After its translation into English by the author and his son its was first published in Esquire in 1971 and then in the collection A Russian Beauty and Other Stories in 1971.

[edit] Plot summary

The Russian émigré writer Ilya Borisovich Tal is struggling with his love story Lips to Lips about an elderly man and a young women. He gets advice from his friend Euphratski who suggests to send "your thing" as a serial to Arion, an émigré magazine. The editor lavishes Tal with praise and indicates they "would have been" happy to publish it. Euphratski explains that some money needs to be supplied to support further publications of the magazin, and Tal obliges. The first chapter gets published as a "prologue to a novel" under the pen name "A. Ilyin" although Tal had requested the pen name "I(lya) Annenski" (not being aware that Annensky was a famous Russian writer). Nevertheless, he is extremely proud and happy about his success, although behind his back, people snicker. When he has a chance to meet the editor, he overhears a conversation where the editor defends accepting the article; it is of "hopeless mediocrity" and was only accepted because of the money. Tal is shattered at first, but recovers in the hope that he might publish more, and will be "fully recognized after his death".

[edit] Comments

In an ironical twist Nabobov's satire about the trials of the émigré writer was - while accepted for publication in 1931 or 32 - not printed at that time because the magazine went out of business. Thus it had to wait a quarter century for its appearance. Nabokov remarked that by then everybody who might have resembled anybody in the story was "safely and heirlessly dead".

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Works by Vladimir Nabokov
Novels
Short
stories
Russian: "The Wood-Sprite" • "Russian Spoken Here" • "Sounds" • "Wingstroke" • "Gods" • "A Matter of Chance" • "The Seaport" • "Revenge" • "Beneficence" • "Details of a Sunset" • "The Thunderstorm" • "La Veneziana" • "Bachmann" • "The Dragon" • Christmas" • "A Letter That Never Reached Russia" • "The Fight" • "The Return of Chorb" • "A Guide to Berlin" • "A Nursery Tale" • "Terror" • "Razor" • "The Passenger • "The Doorbell" • "An Affair of Honor" • "The Christmas Story" • "The Potato Elf" • "The Aurelian" • "A Dashing Fellow" • "A Bad Day" • "The Visit to the Museum" • "A Busy Man" • "Terra Incognita" • "The Reunion" • "Lips to Lips" • "Orache" • "Music" • "Perfection" • "The Admiralty Spire" • "The Leonardo" • "In Memory of L. I. Shigaev" • "The Circle" • "A Russian Beauty" • Breaking the News" • "Torpid Smoke" • "Recruiting" • "A Slice of Life" • "Spring in Fialta" • "Cloud, Castle, Lake" • "Tyrants Destroyed" • "Lik" • "Vasiliy Shishkov" • "Ultima Thule" • "Solus Rex"

French: "Mademoiselle O"

English: "The Assistant Producer" • "That in Aleppo Once..." • "A Forgotten Poet" • "Time and Ebb" • "Conversation Piece, 1945" • "Signs and Symbols" • "First Love" • "Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster" • "The Vane Sisters" • "Lance" • "Easter Rain"
Plays
Death • The Grandfather • The North Pole • The Tragedy of Mr. Morn • The Man from the USSR • The Event • The Waltz Invention
Non-fiction
Speak, Memory • Strong Opinions • Nikolai Gogol • Lectures on Literature • Lectures on Russian Literature • Lectures on Don Quixote • The Nabokov-Wilson letters • Selected Letters, 1940-1977 • Notes on Prosody
Miscellanea
Poems and Problems • Lolita: A Screenplay • The Annotated Lolita • Carrousel