Strong Opinions by vladimir nabokov

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I finally had the opportunity to read the Paris Review interview that was enticingly presented on the PR website. Additionally, the Playboy interview was rather good, perhaps even better than the Paris Review one. I have a deep love for Nabokov. However, I don't appreciate the way this collection makes me feel so contemptuous. Do strong opinions necessarily have to be so hateful? I believe that my own strong opinions regarding certain books, in fact, most books, are also quite hateful. But is Nabokov so irritated by these questions that he has to respond in this manner?

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sayanblaze

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

This is a truly nice collection that encompasses interviews, essays, and letters.

Although it may have a bit of repetition at times, it is nonetheless another glorious feast of Nabokov's remarkable wit and his absolute perfect control over language and sound.

I was particularly charmed by the simile where he fears that the movie version of Lolita might make him feel as if he were rattling horizontally in the back of an ambulance meandering along a hillside road.

I'm not as passionately against Freud and the act of asserting oneself into opinions and schools of thought as he is. Also, I find his views on the political value of the novel to be somewhat frustrating, though not entirely without merit. However, I hold him in such high regard as an author that I can see his point while not being overly bothered by it.

I was especially intrigued by reading his notes on translation. It was really cool as I've had a sort of inclination to get into that field and I really like his perspective. Additionally, his classic acerbic insults and his cool (yet infuriatingly well-deserved) egotism add an interesting flavor.

The passages towards the end that focus on lepidoptery hold less interest for me, but they were still excellent as his expertise and enthusiasm shine through without any hint of syntactical clumsiness or less-than-perfect phrasing. Overall, it's really good!

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Radical-Alice

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

It is abundantly clear from this that Nabokov writes as he thinks.

His writing style is characterized by an obsessive precision that always reminds me more of a mathematician than an author.

One can see this in the way he carefully constructs his sentences, choosing each word with the utmost care and attention to detail.

His descriptions are so vivid and exact that they seem to jump off the page, creating a world that is both beautiful and strange.

It is as if he is solving a complex mathematical equation with each sentence he writes, striving for the perfect solution.

This unique approach to writing makes Nabokov's work truly one-of-a-kind and a joy to read for those who appreciate the beauty and power of language.

Whether he is writing about love, loss, or the human condition, his words always have a profound impact on the reader, leaving them with a sense of wonder and awe.

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dtc59

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

"If told I am a bad poet, I smile; but if told I am a bad scholar, I reach for my heaviest dictionary." This quote beautifully encapsulates this non-fiction piece by a master artist I hold in high regard. His always charming and often outrageously frank commentary on literature is of the utmost originality and individuality. It's fascinating to read how he can demolish the reputation of a literary critic who, in a poor and ignorant manner, tried to do the same to Nabokov's own reputation as a scholar, with such sharp details. Such was the case with his old friend Edmund Wilson when criticizing Nabokov's method in translating Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into English. Other interesting accounts are presented here about his life as a Russian émigré in Germany, France, and the United States. We learn how the Russian Revolution led to higher levels of Philistinism in the Soviet Union, the publication issues with Lolita, and his trips in search of lepidoptera. This work offers a captivating glimpse into the mind and life of a remarkable individual.

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WandererRedux

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

A good reader is compelled to undertake enormous efforts when grappling with a difficult author. The process can be arduous, filled with challenges and moments of confusion. However, it is precisely these efforts that can bring the greatest satisfactions. When the vivid dust of complexity finally dissolves, the reader experiences a sense of accomplishment and enlightenment. It is as if a fog has lifted, revealing a new and beautiful landscape of ideas. The difficult author, through their intricate language and profound concepts, forces the reader to stretch their intellectual boundaries and engage in deep thinking. This process of struggle and eventual understanding enriches the reader's mind and broadens their perspective. It is a journey worth taking, for the rewards are great.

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amvlover2215

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I am two-thirds of the way through this book and I have determined two things. Firstly, Vladimir Nabokov is a complete asshole. His writing style can be quite abrasive at times. However, on the other hand, he is also hilariously funny. His wit and humor shine through in his words, making the reading experience rather entertaining.

EDIT: I have now finished the book, and I still stand by my earlier conclusion. The book is divided into three parts: interviews, letters to the editor, and articles. The interviews were by far the best part. They provided great insights into Nabokov's mind and his creative process. The letters to the editor were okay only because they were short. Some of the articles, I have to admit, I didn't even read. Specifically, the one that extensively described translating Pushkin's poetry, and the ones about identifying, classifying, and scientifically describing butterflies. They just didn't hold my interest.

All in all, despite its flaws, I still think this book is worth the read. It offers a unique perspective on Nabokov as a person and as a writer. It's not a perfect book, but it's definitely an interesting one.

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krisakola

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

Very disappointing.

I've read a couple of his novels, such as "Pnin" and "Pale Fire", and his memoir "Speak, Memory", and I really enjoyed them. However, I also felt that I was missing a lot in the novels.

Plus, one of my best and most literary friends loves VN. (Though then again, he loves Beckett too.)

Moreover, I love interviews with and essays by literary and smart people. These "interviews" are pretty much essays, given that his consistent policy was to write out answers to the questions sent to him.

On the evidence here, the guy is just a boor. He spends most of his time bragging about how brilliant he is and how the rest are not worthy. The first once or twice this can be a bit entertaining, but this collection, which spans about 15 years or so, shows that he doesn't know when to stop.

That and butterflies. Whoopee, he likes butterflies.

He rates himself as some kind of super genius writer, but when he gets into a scholarly spat with Edmund Wilson, he's not even convincing. And his English is actually rather shaky. If he weren't the revered novelist, this would be more obvious. But to see all this for yourself, I recommend you read (ideally without paying) the piece called "Reply to my critics".

I was toying with the idea of calling him the Muhammad Ali of literature - the boasting, the taunting, the butterflies - but it would be unfair on Ali (who was a better poet than VN was a boxer). And VN stings like a wasp, not a bee - he keeps on stinging, apparently for the sheer joy of spite.

Nevertheless, I will probably read "Lolita" and some of the other big novels sometime (and possibly "Pale Fire" again for a book club meeting next month). VN seems to be the anti-Orwell: an egomaniac, politically uninterested, and he should stick to fiction rather than essays.

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aCupOfJuice

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I read this mainly to supplement my reading and, as I hoped, enhance my understanding of “Lolita,” which I’ve recently read as well. “Strong Opinions” is indeed a great choice if one desires to gain an insight into Nabokov’s ideas and preferences, and understand where he is coming from as a fiction writer. And truly, “strong opinions” is no laughing matter. The man holds some of the most unorthodox opinions I’ve ever come across, especially regarding the relative worth of other writers.

The last third of the book contains several “Letters to the Editor” of various publications (most of which, in my more cowardly opinion, are rather insignificant) and articles. A few of these cover his interest in Lepidoptera, which I assume most people will simply skip over. I always read an entire book from cover to cover before rating and reviewing it, but I openly admit to skimming through these contributions. In many of them, including an overly long article on his view of Edmund Wilson’s relationship with and translation of “Eugene Onegin,” he takes delight in being particularly pedantic, touchy, and cruel.

As I mentioned, for most people, the most crucial part of this will be the interviews. Although the themes of the interviews tend to be a bit repetitive, I found them significant in pondering Nabokov’s fiction. He passionately hates the classical “novel of ideas.” He believes many of his Russian novelist colleagues have been guilty of the moralism that often accompanies these ideas, especially in the cases of Gogol and Dostoyevsky. (He detests Gogol’s fascination with religion and Dostoyevsky’s clumsy, bumbling characters.) He thinks Hemingway and Conrad are “writers of books for boys,” and he considers Faulkner to be horrible – and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to authors on whom he has rather unusual opinions. He contends that “Anna Karenina” cannot be understood without a thorough knowledge of the shape of a particular kind of trolley car, and “Ulysses” is meaningless if one doesn’t have a detailed mental map of Joyce’s Dublin at hand. As far as fiction is concerned, ideas and history are of little importance to him; heightened, unadulterated aesthetic enjoyment is what truly fascinates him. His politics, if one is at all interested in them, he describes as “liberal,” yet he seems to be a rather ardent defender of intervention in Vietnam and American interests in general. He thinks Freud is a joke and constantly makes fun of him in his fiction. (Well, perhaps at least a few people can agree on that last point.)

What’s most astonishing about this collection is that the pieces were selected by Nabokov himself, and he clearly couldn’t care less about coming across as a nitpicking, bitchy curmudgeon or advertising that he didn’t mind ending a decades-long friendship over differences in translating a nineteenth-century Russian poem. If you don’t share his opinions, he has no qualms about calling you a philistine. But why should he care? “What’s your position in the world of letters, Mr. Nabokov?” “The view is pretty good from up here,” he replies. It’s nice to be the king.

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