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645 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
鈥淎 writer might be a good storyteller or a good moralist, but unless he be an enchanter, an artist, he is not a great writer.鈥�
鈥淚t seems to me that a good formula to test the quality of a novel is, in the long run, a merging of the precision of poetry and the intuition of science. In order to bask in that magic a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading. Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual, we shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass.
鈥淪ome readers may suppose that such things as these evocations are trifles not worth stopping at; but literature consists of such trifles. Literature consists, in fact, not of general ideas but of particular revelations, not of schools of thought but of individuals of genius. Literature is not about something: it is the thing itself, the quiddity. Without the masterpiece, literature does not exist.鈥�
鈥淔irst, the device is not more "realistic鈥� or more "scientific" than any other. In fact if some of Molly鈥檚 thoughts were described instead of all of them being recorded, their expression would strike one as more "realistic,鈥� more natural. The point is that the stream of consciousness is a stylistic convention because obviously we do not think continuously in words鈥攚e think also in images; but the switch from words to images can be recorded in direct words only if description is eliminated as it is here. Another thing: some of. our reflections come and go, others stay; they stop as it were, amorphous and sluggish, and it takes some time for the flowing thoughts and thoughtlets to run around those rocks of thought. The drawback of simulating a recording of thought is the blurring of the time element and too great a reliance on typography.鈥�
"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.鈥�
The lectures collected in these two volumes represent Vladimir Nabokov鈥檚 teaching at Wellesley and Cornell鈥攚ith four lectures prepared听for special occasions. For the convenience of readers, the lectures have been听separated into two volumes: 1. British, French, and German Writers;听2. Russian Writers.