Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I think there's an understandable misconception about Nabokov's facility with language. English was in fact the first language he could read and write, as his first governess was English. His family was trilingual at home and he grew up speaking Russian, English and French with equal fluency. It wasn't that odd in the circumstances; even the Imperial family spoke English among themselves, as the Tsarina never learned Russian well.
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Thanks for the clarification. It does explain how he had such a great command of the language.
Reading it has made me want to see the movie again (both the James Mason and Jeremy Irons versions), as there was much that I didn't remember from the films, such as Quilty's murder, which I can't imagine they left it out.