Nabokov is so based

>>8783005
>newfag discovers Nabokov's meme opinion
Nice cancer thread, retard.

sage

>>8783005
but what if he was meming? :s

Nabokov, Vladimir. Loathe him. A paltry fantasist and fraudulent ringmaster. Detest his overuse of the unreliable narrator gimmick. Pnin is a joy to read.

>>8783005
What are these from?

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>>8783822
not sure where they originate but they are collected online here http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations
and i believe in the book of nabby's criticism and essays "strong opinions"

>>8783005
you know he can be a great writer and be wrong about Dosto at the same time.

>>8783811
>ringmaster
a modest kek

>>8783005
Finnegans Wake. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.

Nabokov completely BTFOs Dostoyevsky (and his casual fans) in Lectures on Russian Literature:

My position in regard to Dostoevski is a curious and difficult one. In all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view that literature interests me—namely the point of view of enduring art and individual genius. From this point of view Dostoevski is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one—with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between. In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov for some reason or other kills an old female pawnbroker and her sister. Justice in the shape of an inexorable police officer closes slowly in on him until in the end he is driven to a public confession, and through the love of a noble prostitute he is brought to a spiritual regeneration that did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. My difficulty, however, is that not all the readers to whom I talk in this or other classes are experienced. A good third, I should say, do not know the difference between real literature and pseudo-literature, and to such readers Dostoevski may seem more important and more artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things called From Here to Eternity and such like balderdash.

>>8784062
Why is he so salty? Is it because he will forever live in the shadow of based Dostoevsky?

>>8784077
Wouldn't you be annoyed if nobody read any American author other than Mark Twain? That's what Dostoevsky did for Russian literature.

>>8783005
Nabokov was a very bad reader and thinker. If you've ever read his Lectures on Literature, you can tell that Nabokov has a relatively superficial knowledge of the spiritual (and in my opinion, most important) side of literature. That is why he tries so hard to espouse the superiority of aesthetics and structure. A clever man, but a shallow man.

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>>8784088
>Wouldn't you be annoyed if nobody read any American author other than Mark Twain?

Well, maybe it's because Mark Twain is one of the greatest ever American writers. Why would anyone want to read anything inferior? Mark Twain greatly influenced Modernism with his writing.

>>8783005
tfw Nabokov will never call you a genius, or even just "second rate"

Disregarding Nabokov's perceived memery, are there any similar lists by smart, credible critics (writers or otherwise) easily available?

>>8784097
Don't you remember when Harry Potter effectively destroyed the entire child's book award category for a entire decade?

The bit about dosto wasn't by sommerset maugham?

Does this mean i shouldnt bother reading Dosty?

>>8784089
I don't think you're being entirely fair in citing Lectures on Literature as evidence of Nabokov's shallowness: everything in that book was written with the aim in mind of teaching his students how to spot artistry, and to draw their attention to the kind of questions that it might not ordinarily occur to them to ask.

I can kind of see where you're coming from, but Nabokov definitely has a line in transcendence and a kind of spiritualism in his work.

>>8784153
It means you shouldn't bother reading Nabokov

>>8784121

make your own senpai

>>8784089
>spiritual side of literature
go home Herbert