To: V. Nabokov, Montreux, Switzerland
FROM: J. Barth, Buffalo, U.S.A.
RE: April 23
Dear Mr. N.:
Today we lost Cervantes, St. George, and Shakespeare, but recouped Shakespeare and are clear ahead by Viscount Allenby, Admiral Anson, Hazel Brown, Sandra Dee, J. P. Donleavy, J. A.
Froude, Raymond Huntley, Margaret Kennedy, Ngaio Marsh, Max Planck, I like Max Planck, Sergei Prokofiev, Henry Sherek, Vladimirs Sikorski and Yourself, Dame Ethel Smyth, Shirley Temple, and J. M. W. Turner. I guess we’re OK. If the chaps on Nu Ophiuchi have their scopes trained just now upon 47, Morskaya, St. Petersburg, they may catch the p. f. of your first birthday candle—unless the east curtain’s drawn, Russia cloudy, or the family gone a-Mondaying to Vyra, or that tot was after all born yesterday, despite the evidence a Saturday’s child.
He’ll go far in time! My wish for him, before he outs that one brief candle: let today in 2899, when Earth sets about his Millennial Festschrift, Betelgeuse count a hundred on his cake!
Yours truly,
Barth’s piece was published in the Winter 1970 issue of TriQuarterly. The issue was dedicated to Nabokov on his 70th birthday.
Biblioklept 