I enjoyed your article very much. I once possessed (and read) most of Nabokov’s works - oh, hundreds of years ago - but now I have on my shelves only ‘Speak Memory’, his wonderful book on Gogol, ‘Lectures on Literature’, his translation of Lermontov, and that brief late novel ‘Transparent Things' for which I retain an affection the reasons for which I have never understood. What made me fall out with his novels was, I think, the snobbishness, and the games he played with, and on, the reader. I have come to wonder whether Thomas Mann’s judgement on Ernst Jünger (‘a cold dandy’) may not be applicable also to Nabokov.
I enjoyed your article very much. I once possessed (and read) most of Nabokov’s works - oh, hundreds of years ago - but now I have on my shelves only ‘Speak Memory’, his wonderful book on Gogol, ‘Lectures on Literature’, his translation of Lermontov, and that brief late novel ‘Transparent Things' for which I retain an affection the reasons for which I have never understood. What made me fall out with his novels was, I think, the snobbishness, and the games he played with, and on, the reader. I have come to wonder whether Thomas Mann’s judgement on Ernst Jünger (‘a cold dandy’) may not be applicable also to Nabokov.
Hi Timothy, I hope I live hundreds of years and end up with shelves like yours, and thanks so much for this comment – it will sustain me for ages!
Cheers
George