September 28, 2009


Vladimir Nabokov discusses “Lolita”

Also valuable is the New York Times piece that directed me to this video:

What’s that Nabokov’s doing with his hands? He’s turning over index cards. He’s glancing at notes. He’s reading. Fluent in three languages, he relies on prefabricated responses to talk about his work. Am I disappointed? I am at first, but then I think: writers don’t have to be brilliant conversationalists; it’s not their job to be smart except, of course, when they write. Hazlitt, that most self-conscious of writers, remarked that he did not see why an author “is bound to talk, any more than he is bound to dance, or ride, or fence better than other people. Reading, study, silence, thought are a bad introduction to loquacity.”

posted by Andrew Simone in literature, writing 

comments

2 Responses to “Vladimir Nabokov discusses “Lolita””

  1. austin on September 29th, 2009 at 7:08 am

    You reading Lectures on Literature?

  2. Andrew Simone on September 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am

    I am not. Should I be?

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