So. Here's the thing. Nabokov didn't like teaching, as a blue blooded Russian aristocrat he no doubt found it beneath him. So, accordingly, throughout this book of essays you get that sort of slightly sneery tone. Also, if you like Dostoyevsky (I don't), probably not the book for you. HOWEVER...

If you A) Dislike Dostoyevsky B) Dislike the constance garnett translations of Russian classics c) Love Tolstoy and Turgeneev d) Want to read some essays that get realllllly nitty gritty with the text (With citations, explanations etc) this is an invaluable book of essays. He is a master of deconstructing the novel.

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من از درسگفتارهای اروپایی فقط پروست و فلوبر را خواندم که این کتاب هم مانند آن کتاب به نکات مهمی در رابطه با این دو شاهکار ادبی اشاره کرده بود.

I normally read for pleasure of reading & though I prefer some authors over others and some genres over others, I pretty much read everything.
Once I've read Nabokov's lectures I read differently though. First, I'm much more independent in my judgement of the books - I no longer care to like any books I'm "supposed" to like or finish reading some "great classic" or an "excellent bestseller" only because critics say so.
Second, I pay more attention to subtleties of the plot, intricacy of the language, consistency of characters.

Nabokov's lectures are the very reflection of Nabokov the man: full of wit, extensive knowledge of the subject, t
aestheticism and some snobbism to spice it all.

Read this book and join Nabokov for a typically droll, dry, witty take on some classics of European lit.

There are downsides of course. The book pays little attention to twentieth-century literary theory, relying instead on a kind of commonsense model of how literature "should" work. Nabokov's totalizing claims often strike me as fussy bullshit, and his analysis is sometimes just summary. Still, if just for the prose and the pithy remarks, the book's worth reading.

I mean, check it out:

So right about Bleak House: "I must say that despite the superb planning of the novel, the main mistake was to let Esther tell part of the story. I would not have let the girl near!"

On Madame Bovary: "...adultery being a most conventional way to rise above the conventional."

On Joyce: "Indeed, in verbal generosity he is a veritable Santa."

Great contrast: "Joyce takes a complete and absolute character, God-known, Joyce-known, then breaks it up into fragments and scatters these fragments over the space-time of the book. The good rereader gathers these puzzle pieces and gradually puts them together. On the other hand, Proust contends that a character, a personality, is never known as an absolute but always as a comparative one."