excerpt from biography VN.
excerpt from Strong Opinions
short article about "Good Readers..." from Literary Essays
these are all in the packet
Record your impressions, which may be quite indirect, of Nabokov the personality - his values about literature, his way of presenting himself as a public figure, and also his public persona: how he was received in the 1940s and '50s; the state of literary culture at that time; his status as a Russian, European (or Soviet) writer as it may have affected his reception.
From the interview: does his personality as a writer seem distinct from his character as a person? (We should remember that Nabokov customarily demanded questions in advance and wrote out his answers - so, he was probably not a spontaneous person.) Take note of his philosophy towards literature as represented in the interview.
Regarding the two chapters from the biography: I am always suspicious of biographers, who make it their business to construct the events of a life into a narrative - in this case, with commentary. Following the Nabokovian theme of the uncertainty of reality, how much can we trust the biographer? What are his probably sources? How does the narrative change the probable reality of VN's life as a literary lecturer, a writer of novels in English, a teacher, etc.?
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