Nabokov's Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius
Kurt Johnson
McGraw-Hill Companies
2001
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"This insidiously charming book teaches readers about the place of lepidoptery in the life sciences and the kinds of questions that natural scientists seek to answer.... Like Nabokov himself, this volume exemplifies some of the virtues shared by art and science: wit, intelligence, and, above all, meticulousness."-The New Yorker "Charming... In a world that often separates science and culture like church and state, this book reminds us that, for Nabokov, butterflies helped shape ‘a habitual way of looking at the world' that was ultimately conducive to great literature and to great lepidoptery alike."-New York Times Book Review "...a grand book: erudite, generous, and wise. It is written with a grace and intelligence worthy of its eponymous subject."-Boston Globe "Readers with a taste for science and literature will love this book, which is both entertaining and polymathically informativerather like the English/Russian, naturalist/novelist/scholar/artist Nabokov himself."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This insidiously charming book teaches readers about the place of lepidoptery in the life sciences and the kinds of questions that natural scientists seek to answer... Like Nabokov himself, this volume exemplifies some of the virtues shared by art and science: wit, intelligence, and, above all, meticulousness."The New Yorker"Charming... In a world that often separates science and culture like church and state, this book reminds us that, for Nabokov, butterflies helped shape 'a habitual way of looking at the world' that was ultimately conducive to great literature and to great lepidoptery alike."New York Times Book Review"This is a grand book: erudite, generous, and wise. It is written with a grace and intelligence worthy of its eponymous subject."Boston GlobeVladimir Nabokov, the Russian-American author of Lolita and other enduring works of fiction, had no formal training in biology, but during the 1940s was an acknowledged expert in Blues, a diverse group of butterflies inhabiting some of the remotest parts of Latin America. In 1945, while serving as curator at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, he published a radical new classification of Blues, a pioneering work that would remain largely forgotten for nearly fifty years. Part biography of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and part scientific detective story, Nabokov's Blues explores far-reaching questions of biogeography, evolution, and the worldwide crisis in biodiversityas well as the rich and varied place butterflies hold in Nabokov's fiction.
