Nabokov's recommendations. What are his best and worst takes? His ranking of best prose is...alright

He didn't say he hated him. He said he loathed his novels about bells, balls, and bulls. The Killers and The Old Man and the Sea are not about that, nor are they novels.

>Balzac, Honoré de. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes.

>Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.

>Gogol, Nikolai. Nobody takes his mystical didacticism seriously. At his worst, as in his Ukrainian stuff, he is a worthless writer; at his best, he is incomparable and inimitable. Loathe his moralistic slant, am depressed and puzzled by his inability to describe young women, deplore his obsession with religion.

>Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. A cruel and crude old book.

>Mann, Thomas. Dislike him. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.

Shit take after shit take. It's annoying that people here take his opinions seriously. Nabby had extremely narrow and conservative opinions about art. Once you read a few of these, you can easily guess how he's going to feel about every writer.

Nabby died in the 70s, I think. When Latin America had their literary boom and lots of works were translated. I think he only got to read Borges.

>James, Henry. Dislike him rather intensely, but now and then his wording causes a kind of electric tingle. Certainly not a genius.
I fucking love his honesty lol

Thank you.

Petersburg Tales

He liked Hugo's poetry and depreciated his novels, calling him an inverse Walter Scott.

It's compiled from different interviews. In an earlier one he had only read For Whom the Bell Tolls and hated it. Later he read some of the short stories and TOMATS and admired them

all accurate

he was wrong about Don Quixore. It's the exact opposite of what he described.

he seems like a smug redditor with an unwarranted sense of self importance

No, it isn't. You can read his essay on it if you like.

He reminds me of the contrarian posters on this board who have no consistency of taste. Just look at his list, it's all over the place. Also he seemed really bitter towards russian lit. You could tell there is something there.

The one thing he likes is quality.
>Also he seemed really bitter towards russian lit. You could tell there is something there.
Retard, two of the five geniuses he names are Russian.

you're actually a fucking idiot

I've read it. He shows the typical Angloid complex of comparing it to Shakespeare at every lame chance he gets. He missed the point.

Nvm, you clearly know better than Nabokov, especially since you use terms like "angloid" and have convinced yourself that Cervantes is greater than Shakeapeare as a coping mechanism.

>Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.

>jerk off material for the Yea Forums high schoolers

absolute prophet

You also show the typical Angloid defensive attitude when sometimes Cervantes is mentioned in the same line as Shakespeare. I literally never said anything about greatness of either writer, you said it. I still think he missed the point of the novel, just like in many other cases.

You haven’t addresses any of the criticisms he made

How can you say Don Quixote is a crude or cruel book? It's just a funny little story making fun of Chivalric tales.

>Nabokov, Vladimir. Used to be good. Now pale imitation of more vigorous fires. Tiny madman in his padded cell.

You want me to address the criticisms of an entire book or just his meme phrase? I'm guessing just his ignorant quote? Alright. First of all, the purposeless alliteration with no true meaning is cringe-inducing. A "cruel and crude old book". It beats me why would anyone call it "cruel". It's one of the most human books ever written. It's sad, it's joyous, it's comedy, it's drama: it's bitter sweet like life. As for the "crude" accusation, I think it's simply a personal aesthetic disagreement. There's a passage in 2666 about a drug-store clerk who preferred reading the clockwork-like polished texts of writers instead of the mysterious imperfect works where they venture into risky and unknown territory. I think Nabokov is like that drug-store clerk, he prefers the polished work over the mysterious one, and that's just a matter of personal preference. The only thing he's truly right about is that it's an old book. That's it.

>One would like to have filmed him at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
>One would like to have filmed his wedding.
Every time I read these quotes they make less sense.

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He's just a fanboy wanting to know more about his heroes, user. The Melville one is symbolic because of Moby-Dick. The Poe one is interesting because Poe married his 13 year old cousin.

>Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. A cruel and crude old book.
Surprisingly accurate, just consider it's a compliment.

I was not expecting him to like Beckett lol based

>Faulkner, William. Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.

What the FUCK was his problem?

probably derived from classism

No, I meant any of the points in his essay you clown

>Hellens, Franz. Very important.
>La femme partagee. Like it particularly.
Huh is this cuck shit? The name of that translates to "A Shared Woman".

his best was clearly The Portrait

how can anyone with a brain in they head not like beckett?

We're talking about his rather underwhelming book Lectures on Don Quixote, right? Yea, I don't have the time nor the will for that and I don't even have the book anymore. Reply to what I said.

The book that Nabofags don't want you to read.

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nabokov liked niggers and little girls and was a crypto-jew

>Salinger, J. D. By far one of the finest artists in recent years.
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish." A great story. A particular favorite.

His poetry is downright awful. He doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing verse.

>wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations
Says he loves Joyce and then completely shits on two of his novels calling them worthless. What a madman

I’m shocked he didn’t like Cervantes, that’s a real oversight, idk if I can trust his judgement now.