What's the verdict on Vladimir Nabokov?

[which doctor]

Has anyone here read much by Nabokov? He's frequently regarded as one of the greatest modern English writers, though he was born in Russia and his family fled soon after the Revolution. I know a lot of these emigre writers are quite reactionary, but I've never really encountered that same sentiment from Nabokov books, but I haven't studied him in detail.

A few years ago I read most of Pale Fire, but I was less than impressed. But this past summer I read his Transparent Things, which is considered one of his most difficult pieces, three times. Needless to say, although I understood the story better after every time I read it, it just got more confusing.

So what's the verdict? Reactionary, anti-communist White Russian emigre, or brilliant artist who captured the (post)modern moment of the mid-20th century?

[x359594]

...So what's the verdict? Reactionary, anti-communist White Russian emigre, or brilliant artist who captured the (post)modern moment of the mid-20th century?

It seems that Nabokov's early political sentiments were Social Revolutionary so that rules out White Russian synpathies. He was certainly one of the greatest prose-stylists of the 20th century, especially considering that English was his second language.

[Sendo]

It seems that Nabokov's early political sentiments were Social Revolutionary so that rules out White Russian synpathies. He was certainly one of the greatest prose-stylists of the 20th century, especially considering that English was his second language.

Joseph Conrad was another amazing second-language learner of English who mastered English prose excellently, regardless of origin.

I haven't read his stuff, but the most pop-culturally known work is Lolita. I think that pieces like that aren't in and of themselves worker or anti-worker, but I think the more important question would be is choosing non-political subject matters, and/or subject matters that matter to onl a few individuals bourgeois or petty bourgeois stories or just stories.

I suppose he most you can glean is hints at the man himself in the language of his works and in what he omits. What are your thoughts which doctor? Do you feel an elitist isolation from the world at large when you read--or are you just trying to find out more before you invest (too much) time in him?

[khad]

It seems that Nabokov's early political sentiments were Social Revolutionary so that rules out White Russian synpathies. He was certainly one of the greatest prose-stylists of the 20th century, especially considering that English was his second language.
Actually, he was absolutely against the Soviet Union. He went on record saying that.

His Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_%28magazine%29) obituary reads "Politically, Nabokov saw himself as an old-fashioned liberal, though by current standards he was a William F. Buckley conservative. His suggestion that the portrait of a head of government "should not exceed a postage stamp in size" makes good sense in any ideology."[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov#cite_note-25) Nabokov was close friends with Buckley, to whom he disclosed his staunch anti-Communism and admiration for Richard Nixon.[27] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov#cite_note-26)However, as a writer, he was one of those pure aestheticists (a famous final question he once gave his students was to describe Anna Karenina's wallpaper), and he deliberately avoided political topics in his writing. This is actually why he has staying power as a literary figure--he was never pegged and ghettoized as a "dissident" writer, who were pretty much doomed to irrelevance when the USSR collapsed. In his later years he felt pressured to leave the United States and went back to France.

I don't think anyone has to be guilty deriving literary pleasure from his work.

[Kléber]

It seems that Nabokov's early political sentiments were Social Revolutionary so that rules out White Russian synpathies.
Yep the S-R party were a diverse bunch, ended up among Whites, Reds, Blacks, Greens and Blues.