Stacy Schiff, Véra’s biographer, strongly advised against reading anything specific into Véra’s blanket denial to Levin. Schiff told me that Véra’s letter “reads like everything else [the Nabokovs said] about the primacy of art. It’s a realm unto itself, and everything else is on some pedestrian or insignificant level.” Véra, Schiff said, dismissed anything that could be perceived as a “mandarin influence on high art.” The everyday needed to be discarded at the altar of creative imagination.
No. Not ever. 😷💀☠️
