Will I become a good well reader if I read everything Nabokov likes (e.g. Borges, Austen, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Joyce...

Will I become a good well reader if I read everything Nabokov likes (e.g. Borges, Austen, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Joyce, Salinger, Kafka, Melville) and avoid everything he hates (e.g. Dostoevsky, Faulkner, DH Lawrence, Sartre, James, Freud, Camus, and any books concerned with moral lessons)?

>Will I become a good reader if I blindly follow the opinions of others?
No.

/thread

Blindly listen to this

Seriously, why do so many people on this board care so much about Nabokov? It's an American thing? I don't understand how he is so overrepresented and how someone could care about the edgy opinions of an attention whore.

>others

I didn't say "others". I specifically named one person.

Even by reading just one book you will be more well read than the general population

Nabokov has a specific view of literature. I'm not going to try and summarise it completely, but I guess you would call his perspective aesthetics. He doesn't care for moral lessons, cliches, platitudes, sensationalism, etc. So when you look at literature from his standpoint, a lot of authors and books, commonly considered popular and/or good, will come under scurrility.

>scurrility

Scrunity*.

An edgy self proclaimed patrician who constantly shits on the work of others

Yeah its a mystery why he appeals to Veeky Forums

>self proclaimed

He is one of the most studied writers of the last century.

I love Nabokov. I'm just saying he had not the slightest interest in humility

Why would that detract from anything?

It doesn't. I'm just saying why he appeals to people here try keep up

No. Nabokov's tastes were far too limited. You should at least try James, Faulkner, old Dusty, and the rest.

>all this modernist wank

wew

>romantic cliched bore detected

I'll take comfy pastoral scenes over more stream of consciousness wank from sexually frustrated academics any day.

>academics

Stream of consciousness was almost anti-academic.

In theory.

In practice you dunce.

I'll disagree, since such techniques create all this cute obfuscation that academics love to nibble until their dicks turn purple. Just look at Joyce.

You're a complete idiot.

Yet nothing I said was wrong. Guess it's not too bad.

I can understand some, but Nabokov really hated Henry James? I might have to throw out my copy of Pale Fire.

Throw yourself out of this board while you're at it

well, moral shitters are the worst. i recall reading a short story from some famous russian about a guy who barely spoke, and he then was taken under protection by some guy that made shoes? and then the mute guy was a master shoemaker? and then he literally ascended to heavens becuase he was a literal angel? that shit was well written but almost made me puke. i dont want stuff like that, it has nothing to do with real life, its kiddie shit, bordering capeshit.

Nabokov didn't actually hate those people. I had a teacher who is a respected Nabokov scholar and taught a class on him. I took it. He explained Nabokov's hate for Dostoyevsky isn't serious. It's just some sort of literary persona he's roleplaying as.

No, forget about his taste, you should collect dead butterflies.

Can I also use this trick? Call peope hacks then say it's my alternative persona.

It only makes it worse. Pause to think about what you're saying there.

If you had ever read one of his novels, you would understand.

>implying Tolstoy isn't concerned with moral lessons

ad hominem

Nabokov had strong opinions in order to encourage others to speak out against him. Having people agree with him is exactly what he didn't want.

prove this

yes

What possible proof could you want for this, a written admission?

woah

>merely pretending to be retarded

I read it in a foreword or something. Im not sure if they were a student of his or if they were just their own guess.

>Scrunity*.
what did he mean by this?

bump of life

Yeah, I read that too. His letters to Edmund Wilson show the very same tastes he expressed in interviews, so I don't buy it.

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