Editing Vladimir Nabokov (section)

==Personal life==
===Synesthesia===
Nabokov was a self-described [[synesthesia|synesthete]], who at a young age equated the number five with the color red.<ref>Martin, Patrick. "Synaesthesia, metaphor and right-brain functioning" in ''Egoist''.</ref> Aspects of synesthesia can be found in several of his works. His wife also exhibited synesthesia; like her husband, her mind's eye associated colors with particular letters. They discovered that Dmitri shared the trait, and moreover that the colors he associated with some letters were in some cases blends of his parents' hues—"which is as if [[gene]]s were painting in [[aquarelle]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/NABOKOW/Inter02.txt|title=Nabokov's interview| publisher= BBC Television |year= 1962 | via= kulichki.com |access-date=5 December 2015}}</ref> Nabokov also wrote that his mother had synesthesia, and that she had different letter-color pairs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bouchet |first1=Marie |last2=Loison-Charles |first2=Julie |last3=Poulin |first3=Isabelle |title=The Five Senses in Nabokov's Works |date=19 June 2020 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-45406-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T2jsDwAAQBAJ |language=en |page=247}}</ref>

For some synesthetes, letters are not simply ''associated with'' certain colors, they ''are themselves'' colored. Nabokov frequently endowed his protagonists with a similar gift. In ''[[Bend Sinister (novel)|Bend Sinister]]'', Krug comments on his perception of the word "loyalty" as like a golden fork lying out in the sun. In ''The Defense'', Nabokov briefly mentions that the main character's father, a writer, found he was unable to complete a novel that he planned to write, becoming lost in the fabricated storyline by "starting with colors".  Many other subtle references are made in Nabokov's writing that can be traced back to his synesthesia. Many of his characters have a distinct "sensory appetite" reminiscent of synesthesia.<ref>{{cite book| first= John Burt |last= Foster |year= 1993| title= Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism| url= https://archive.org/details/nabokovsartmemor00fost | url-access= limited | publisher= Princeton University Press | pages= [https://archive.org/details/nabokovsartmemor00fost/page/n43 26]–32|isbn= 9780691069715 }}</ref>

Nabokov described his synesthesia at length in his autobiography ''[[Speak, Memory]]'':<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bouchet |first1=Marie |last2=Loison-Charles |first2=Julie |last3=Poulin |first3=Isabelle |title=The Five Senses in Nabokov's Works |date=19 June 2020 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-45406-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T2jsDwAAQBAJ |language=en |pages=255–256}}</ref>

{{blockquote|I present a fine case of colored hearing. Perhaps "hearing" is not quite accurate, since the color sensations seem to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long ''a'' of the English alphabet (and it is this alphabet I have in mind farther on unless otherwise stated) has for me the tint of weathered wood, but the French ''a'' evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard ''g'' (vulcanized rubber) and ''r'' (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal ''n'', noodle-limp ''l'', and the ivory-backed hand mirror of ''o'' take care of the whites. I am puzzled by my French ''on'' which I see as the brimming tension-surface of alcohol in a small glass. Passing on to the blue group, there is steely ''x'', thundercloud ''z'', and huckleberry ''k''. Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see ''q'' as browner than ''k'', while ''s'' is not the light blue of ''c'', but a curious mixture of [[Azure (color)|azure]] and [[mother-of-pearl]].}}

=== Religion ===
Nabokov was a religious [[Agnosticism|agnostic]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Vladimir Nabokov|year=1974|publisher=F. Ungar Publishing Company|isbn=9780804426381|page=[https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokov00dona/page/8 8]|first=Donald E.|last=Morton|quote=Nabokov is a self-affirmed agnostic in matters religious, political, and philosophical.|url=https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokov00dona/page/8}}</ref> He was very open about, and received criticism for, his indifference to organized [[mysticism]], to religion, and to any church.<ref>{{Cite web|date=16 August 2016|title=Playboy Interview: Vladimir Nabokov|url=http://reprints.longform.org/playboy-interview-vladimir-nabokov|access-date=5 August 2020|website=Atavist|language=en|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803164231/http://reprints.longform.org/playboy-interview-vladimir-nabokov|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Sleep ===
Nabokov was a notorious, lifelong insomniac who admitted unease at the prospect of sleep, once saying, "the night is always a giant".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Parkin|first=Simon|date=14 September 2018|title=Finally, a cure for insomnia?|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/14/finally-a-cure-for-insomnia|access-date=3 July 2020|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Later in life his insomnia was exacerbated by an enlarged prostate.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-vladimir-nabokov-saw-in-his-dreams|title=The Enthralling, Anxious World of Vladimir Nabokov's Dreams|last=Piepenbring|first=Dan|magazine=The New Yorker|date=8 February 2018|access-date=23 November 2019|language=en|issn=0028-792X}}</ref> Nabokov called sleep a "moronic fraternity", "mental torture", and a "nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/19/vladimir-nabokovs-dream-diary-2/|title=For three months in 1964, Vladimir Nabokov wrote down his dreams every morning, pursuing a theory that time flows backward|date=19 December 2017|website=The Vintage News|language=en|access-date=23 November 2019}}</ref> Insomnia's impact on his work has been widely explored, and in 2017 [[Princeton University Press]] published a compilation of his dream diary entries, ''Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Insomniac Dreams|last=Nabokov|first=Vladimir|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2017|isbn=978-0-691-16794-7|editor-last=Barabtarlo|editor-first=Gennady|language=en}}</ref>

===Chess problems===
Nabokov spent considerable time during his exile composing [[chess problem]]s, which he published in Germany's Russian émigré press, ''[[Poems and Problems]]'' (18 problems) and ''[[Speak, Memory]]'' (one). He describes the process of composing and constructing in his memoir: "The strain on the mind is formidable; the element of time drops out of one's consciousness". To him, the "originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity" of creating a chess problem was similar to that in any other art.