Nabokov and a Brewery

                Life is getting interesting here in St. Petersburg, as my time is quickly drawing to a close. Today we discussed Nabokov’s autobiographical memoir, Speak, Memory. It’s actually really cool, because Nabokov was fully trilingual (French being his first language, English coming in as a close second, and Russian as third). Thus, this memoir was actually originally written in English. That thought astounds me. I love the concept of someone being just as beautifully fluent in one language as they are in another, but Nabokov being able to write as fluently and succinctly in two other languages as well as he does in English simply boggles my mind. I love how he treated pre-Revolutionary Russia almost in a teasing tone – nostalgically, but not without some humor or liveliness.

                The tour of his house museum was also a success. I think I largely enjoyed it because we didn’t have a guided tour (it would have been ridiculous, with the only rooms with exhibitions being so small), we got to see some wonderful visual anecdotes of his life, and we watched a decently long interview with him from the sixties. His accent astounded me – he spoke English in a French accent, and I cannot honestly say that I heard Russian at all in there. I’d love to examine his work more, especially since he was such a controversial figure. I’d like to know what sort of thought process led this man to write something like Lolita, and what his mental framework is. He seems like such an enigmatic figure in literature, he’d really be interesting to research.

                Anyway, after than Virginia and I headed back to the souvenir market by Church on the Spilled Blood, since she needed several more lacquer boxes for her nieces, as well as presents for her nephews. One of the men at a stand actually recognized us, remembered we were students, and gave us quite a good deal on three lacquer boxes. So nice. I love it when they’re really pleasant people, and they offer you the best prices you’ve found after walking through the rest of the market. We then went home, entertaining ourselves along the way by switching intermittently between English, French, and Russian while walking behind two obviously American (and obnoxiously loud, by Russian standards) men. I really do hope we confused them well enough.

                And finally, off to Tinkoff’s brewery for dinner. Yes, dinner. I promise they had things besides beer. Quite good food, actually. I was sitting completely in the middle of the table there, so I got to selectively switch between the two simultaneous conversations always going on at either end. It ranged from psychology to gender relations, husbands, puberty, teen pregnancy, Russian etymology and polite address, and gay marriage. In other words, so much fun, and I could switch to a different side of the table as soon as I got bored with the other. Best seating arrangement ever. Will remember to always do this in the future.

                I afterwards walked a few times around the block with Mia, frivolously discussing marriage, babies, anorexia, acting, and life callings… I enjoyed it. A random man also approached her, and I tried to quickly pull her away (because in Russia, you simply don’t wait for men on the street who are walking toward you, you run quickly). It all came to nothing though, he turned out to be British, and handed her a business card for modeling shots. I hope this is her big break, and not just some random creeper… it would be an amazing coincidence for her.

                In other news, I also had my views largely challenged today, from a debate on selective childbirth practices (i.e., creating embryos in a lab, and then freezing them for later when you have no reason not to have a baby right now other than that “you don’t want one”), gay and secular marriage (which I cautiously entered by stating my standard view of “can’t we call the secular idea something other than marriage, that’s equally good in society’s eyes?”), and gender relations when my professor asked me why I would never consider giving my own name to my children. Felt a little odd, I am very unused to even discussing such subject matter with those who are normal Americans, and thus completely disagree with me. I need to learn to not even try to cast my opinions in a PC light, and just keep my mouth shut when such things come up. No use in me getting slammed, and no use in them getting another reason to deny the benefits and necessities of social conservatism.