Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov

''Every lecture I delivered had been carefully, lovingly handwritten and typed out, and I leisurely read it out in class.'' Bowers has made them into excellently readable essays, you wouldn't appreciate his achievement if you believed Nabokov's remark in ''Strong Opinions'': Sometimes they lacked clear organization, and parts remained in rough notes. The lectures are very learned, very rich in critical insight, and often funny, but they are most extraordinary for the way Nabokov re-creates, in concrete sensuous detail, his experience of reading these Russian writers.įredson Bowers, who edited both volumes, says Nabokov's lectures were mainly handwritten. It deals mainly with Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gorki. The second, ''Lectures on Russian Literature,'' will be similarly received. The first volume, ''Lectures on Literature'' (1980), was received with much praise. His voice summons us to a belief in high art. Father Ong, the great literary scholar, has written an essay called ''Voice As a Summons for Belief.'' Something like this can be heard in the published lectures of Vladimir Nabokov. One still hears remarks like ''I sat at the feet of Heidegger.'' Such abject adoration is a mysterious thing, a sort of religious phenomenon. It is difficult work, year after year, listening to your own voice.

I'd have noticed sooner if the students weren't taking notes. I once began a lecture and talked for several minutes before noticing that I was in the wrong room. $19.95ĪFTER years of lecturing in universities, one of my colleagues was discovered bent over a Xerox machine making copies of his head. Edited, With an Introduction, by Fredson Bowers. LECTURES ON RUSSIAN LITERATURE By Vladimir Nabokov.

Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov