Beyond the Butterfly: Three Hundred Animal Species in Nabokov's Fiction

Abstract

While there are multiple journal articles and four book-length studies that pin down the butterflies in Nabokov's fiction and life, the larger fauna of Nabokov's fiction is comparatively unexplored. As I show in this note, in addition to Nabokov's more than 200 moths and butterflies, there are more than 300 animal species mentioned in his extant prose fiction. To inspire further research, the article lists Nabokov's 300 animal species in seven taxonomic classes and references the novels and novellas in which they appear. The list itself is an argument for the specificity and variety of Nabokov's writing, a testament to his tendency to meticulously label and categorize phenomena, and evidence of Nabokov's expansive interest in non-human animals. The list is also an argument for reading across Nabokov's works to identify characteristics that are otherwise difficult to see from focusing on a single work. While all of Nabokov's fictions have a range of animal species, the extraordinary range and biodiversity of Nabokov's fauna is only apparent from a macroscopic perspective. I suggest that no other Anglophone twentieth-century author wrote as expansively on animals as Nabokov.