Talk:Vladimir Nabokov

message: Was his father not shot by anarchists (not monarchists)? I do not recall whether Nabokov discusses his and his family's synaesthesia in Strong Opinions but that book is not a memoir as stated in the article. He does indeed talk about synaesthesia in his only autobiographical book, Speak, Memory.
 
: Re: the issue of the synathesia, I added a citation to Brian Boyd and an article I found online by Patrick Martin. Fairwin99 (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Death of father? Synaestheisa

message: Mention of Carrousel seems to have been removed in this edit. Was this just a mistake, or was it removed as a suspected hoax? It's most certainly not a hoax. Of course I can't simply prove to you that I have a copy in front of me now, but you can see a copy of the second edition here. (Yes, there were actually two editions; I have a copy of the first. And every copy I've heard of is numbered [!] "HC", so neither edition was "limited", although both were small.) Googling for "nabokov carrousel" may bring more evidence. -- Hoary 06:50, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
* That was my edit, and it looks like it was an error on my part. Feel free to restore as needed. By the way, thanks for all the good edits you've made on this and the other Nabokov related pages. --Arcadian 21:47, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Carrousel''

message: This version of the article had the photo shown here, with the (boilerplate) comment that 
:This is a copyrighted promotional photo with a known source. It is believed that the copyright holder has granted permission for use in works such as Wikipedia or, in the alternative, it may be used under the fair use provision of United States copyright law.
The photographer (whose name wasn't mentioned anywhere) was Horst Tappe. No evidence was given that Tappe (specified as copyright holder as well as photographer in Vladimir Nabokov: A Pictorial Biography) had authorized its use here, or, for that matter, that it was a promotional photo. (Offhand I don't know what it was for; I'd guess for one of the various magazine interviews with VN.) So I've replaced it with the older image. This was taken in 1936, and there's no mention of copyright in the "pictorial biography" (which doesn't mean that it's not copyrighted). -- Hoary 02:49, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
:If you are discussing the picture that used to be at the top of the page (near the first paragraph) then it appears to have been deleted again. I removed the reference to it this evening as it seemed to be pointing to a broken link. I guess another one needs to be found.Matthew king 15:42, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Horst Tappe's photo of Nabokov

message: Hoary: What's up with that copyright warning? Are you a lawyer entitled to decide what is a violation and what is not? If you feel you are, why link to that site at all? Just FYU, the Moshkow site exists since 1994 and is the most respected Russian online library. Is there a lawsuit related to Nabokov's material on that site? If there's none, your "warning" is just your personal opinion. Wikipedia is not a place for opinions, let alone legal opinions. Trapolator 04:43, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright of Nabokov's works 

message: German academic Michael Marr's book The Two Lolitas () describes his recent discovery of a 1916 German short story titled "Lolita" about a middle-aged man traveling abroad who takes a room as a lodger and instantly becomes obsessed with the young pre-teen girl (also named Lolita) who lives in the same house. Marr has speculated that Nabokov may have had cryptomnesia (a "hidden memory" of the story that Nabokov was unaware of) while he was composing Lolita during the 1950s. Marr says that until 1937 Nabokov lived in the same section of Berlin as the author, Heinz von Eschwege (nom de plume: Heinz von Lichberg), and was most likely familiar with his work, which was widely available in Germany during Nabokov's time there. , . The Philadelphia Inquirer says  that, according to Marr, the word "plagiarism" does not apply and quotes him as saying: "Literature has always been a huge crucible in which familiar themes are continually recast...Nothing of what we admire in Lolita is already to be found in the tale; the former is in no way deducible from the latter."
--64.12.116.66 02:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting info, but identical paragraphs have been added to the main Nabokov page and the novel page for Lolita. Isn't that a bit of a waste of space? I suggest cutting it from the main page and just keeping it on the novel page, where it's more relevant. Unless anyone objects, I'll do that in a couple of days. Dybryd 21:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Heinz von Eschwege's "Lolita"

message: Does N. really belong in the "White Russian" category? A monarchist killed his dad!
Dybryd 18:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "White Russian"?

message: Nabokov was an athiest/ agnostic, but neither he nor his family were 'Orthodox'. Hia family were 'Greek Catholic' Uniate.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.24.63 (talk) 08:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This could be an issue of definition, couldn't it?  Some religious groups define members in terms of whether they were baptized into the faith.  I know this is the Catholic rule - anyone baptized a Catholic is a Catholic, whether or not they practice.  It would seem plausible if the Orthodox had a similar conception, although I know nothing specific on that front.  So while Nabokov may not have been a "Christian" in terms of believing in Jesus, and so forth, he was probably a "Christian" in terms of having been baptized as one. john k 14:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: "To me" is the essential phrase in that paragraph. Many religions define their membership culturally and familially as well by doctrine. You may see this as theologically trivial, but that doesn't make groups of cultural but non-observant Jews, Shiites, etc. any less notable from an encyclopedic standpoint. Dybryd 17:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: A :Category:Christians that included everyone who was baptized would be silly.  But indicating the denomination in which someone was baptized seems useful, especially when it's a large, clearly defined institution like the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches.  With protestants, things become very confusing, and such a designation is probably pointless, since so many protestants attend churches of different denominations over the course of their lives.  I'm not really sure what should be done, but I don't think it's mere trivia that someone was born into a large, historic church. john k 21:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: "Greek...Catholic"? Dybryd 19:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Christian?

message: From The Russian Years (42)
:In late spring 1899 the newborn Nabokov narrowly escaped being christened Victor by a bumbling archpresbyter in a ceremony at 47 Morskaya.
(72):
:...once past the stage of children's prayers he always remained completely aloof from "Christianism" as he called it, utterly indifferent "to organized mysticism, to religion, to the church - any church."  Because his mother was of Old Believer stock, she had what Nabokov considered "a healthy distaste for the ritual of the Greek Catholic Church and for its priests" but equally imporant for the boy's development was her intense and pure religiousness "equal faith in the existence of another world and the impossibility of comprehending t in terms of earthly life."
:V.D. Nabokov was more conventional and would take his children fairly often...to the very select Church of the Twelve Apostles...almost behind their house. [...] Vladimir told his father on the way back from a service, some time before he was ten, that he found it boring. "You don't have to come, then."
(152-153):
:The major effort in Nabokov's verse at this time was his "Angel" sequence, nine poems, each devoted to a different order in the celestial hierarchy.... Their angelic imagery has been claimed as proof of Nabokov's supposed religious sensibilities, but he himself later denied any inclination toward Christianity in the occasionally biblical scenes and tropes of his next ten years of voluble verse [...] he was interested not in religion but in developing Byzantine imagery.
Dybryd 01:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. From all of which I infer that he was primarily Christian in the sense of having been baptized, and secondarily for having had a vaguely Christian background. I have no idea whether this is also true for, say, Richard Dawkins, and until this amusing notion occurred to me a few seconds ago had no interest in the matter; but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had been baptized etc etc. It would then strike me as ridiculous to call RD a Christian. (We ignore what he says, and merely consider the fact that he had water sloshed over him.) But perhaps that's just me. -- Hoary 06:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes. But even better to skip it. Boyd devotes a minuscule percentage of his substantial, two-volume biography to the matter; this article is very much shorter, and in the limited space available has much more important matters to deal with. -- Hoary 15:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This discussion was concluded a long time ago, but I disagree with Hoary -- baptism into a church, rejection of its faith but continuing to use its imagery in your adult work, all of this deserves a few sentences -- especially given the prominent place that the idea of the afterlife plays in N's novels. Dybryd 20:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Boyd on religion in N's upbringing

message: The page has just been added to the category "banned writers." When was N's work banned? The most obvious candidate is of course Lolita, but as I understand it, the book simply had difficulty finding a publisher and was never actually censored. Has it (or another of bhis books) been banned since? Was he available in Soviet Russia? Dybryd 18:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: VN's work was banned in the Soviet Union. Griot 21:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That should go in the article, shouldn't it? I'll check the Boyd index and bang out a brief paragraph. Dybryd 23:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey! Somebody remind me to actually do this! Dybryd 21:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "banned writer"?

message: The matter of alleged influences is brought up near the top of this page. It seems that it's time to revisit it. -- Hoary 04:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: VN himself claimed to have been influenced by Chekov and Flaubert. I'll see if I can come up with the quotes. He named Bely's "Petersburgh" as one of the five greatest books of the 20th Century. Griot 23:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I was the one who put the names of White and Updike on the list. You can literally hear Nabokov in White and Updike, and VN praised their works, probably hearing the echo of his own writing in theirs. I think Jeffrey Eugenides should go on the list, again on the basis of his use of alliteration and other literary techniuqes that he had in common with Nabokov. I agree that we should cite an argument for listing writers' names; however, all such citations will be subjective unless the writer him- or herself claims to be influenced by VN. Griot 23:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, all such citations would be subjective, but there's a big difference between (a) subjective judgements for which there is persuasive argument (and not an argument by you or me, but one by a recognized expert) and (b) those which are merely received ideas. Also, I'd be very wary of authorial claims of being influenced: some of the names here are of excellent writers, some mean nothing to me; I don't want to belittle any of them but still say that letting people in by their own say-so is a wonderful invitation for quasi-spamvertising by or on behalf of utter mediocrities. I mean, if I'd written and somehow managed to have published a crummy novel with some fancy turns of phrase, and if the article on myself survived on WP (very easy, of course), what a marvelous way to pump myself up it would be if I linked my article from VN's. -- Hoary 02:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Influences revisited

message: VN certainly had high respect for Bely's work. However, I see no influence whatever. I may be wrong: my knowledge of Bely is cursory. I'd like to see citations of reasoned arguments by recognized scholars for (and not just journalistic recyclings of received ideas about) who influenced VN and how. That is, each name should be accompanied by a note, citing a page-range within Boyd's biography, an essay within the Garland Companion, or similar. -- Hoary 04:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: VN himself claimed to have been influenced by Chekov and Flaubert. I'll see if I can come up with the quotes. He named Bely's "Petersburgh" as one of the five greatest books of the 20th Century. Griot 23:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Influences on VN

message: The list of people allegedly influenced by VN looks very dodgy to me. Some I don't know. One I do know a little is Salinger, for whose work VN had [what is to my mind] an inexplicable high regard. Quite aside from my opinion of Salinger's work (an opinion that, I'll rush to agree, is of no significance here whatever), I see no influence, other perhaps than that of care: VN was a careful writer, Salinger was (is?) I suppose a careful writer, tens of thousands of other authors are careful writers. Significantly, neither the article on VN nor that on Salinger mentions the other writer, other than in this single, unexplained claim for influence, which I've just now deleted. 
Any number of writers may have expressed praise, even high praise, of Nabokov's works, or have had their names linked with his in this or that book review, or have said, probably in all sincerity, to have been influenced by this or that aspect of VN's work (or indeed by the man himself). To me, this doesn't imply noteworthy influence. Again, I think each name should be accompanied by a note, citing a reasoned argument for the influence, an argument by a recognized scholar. -- Hoary 04:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the one who put the names of White and Updike on the list. You can literally hear Nabokov in White and Updike, and VN praised their works, probably hearing the echo of his own writing in theirs. I think Jeffrey Eugenides should go on the list, again on the basis of his use of alliteration and other literary techniuqes that he had in common with Nabokov. I agree that we should cite an argument for listing writers' names; however, all such citations will be subjective unless the writer him- or herself claims to be influenced by VN. Griot 23:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, all such citations would be subjective, but there's a big difference between (a) subjective judgements for which there is persuasive argument (and not an argument by you or me, but one by a recognized expert) and (b) those which are merely received ideas. Also, I'd be very wary of authorial claims of being influenced: some of the names here are of excellent writers, some mean nothing to me; I don't want to belittle any of them but still say that letting people in by their own say-so is a wonderful invitation for quasi-spamvertising by or on behalf of utter mediocrities. I mean, if I'd written and somehow managed to have published a crummy novel with some fancy turns of phrase, and if the article on myself survived on WP (very easy, of course), what a marvelous way to pump myself up it would be if I linked my article from VN's. -- Hoary 02:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Influence of VN

message: wtf, that is not how one pronounces nabokov, you pronounce it na-bo-k-o-v not nabak-a-v as the IPA of his name seems to suggest.--Greg.loutsenko 22:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  pronounciation 

message: Should this article have a "Style & Themes" section, given Nabokov's objection to the themes in literature. In one of his essays (wish I could remember which) he pokes fun of literature professors and their obsession with "themes." I think this Themes section is purely subjective and should go anyway. And at least for God's sakes remove the ampersand. This section was introduced by Sirin97 (cute, that) on August 13, 2006. I'm surprised it's lasted this long and does anyone object if I remove it? Griot 17:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Styles & Themes section?

message: "Perhaps his defining work, which met with a mixed response, is his longest novel, Ada (1969)." -- This should be changed, per guidelines WP:WEASEL and Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#A_simple_formulation. -- 201.19.20.38 14:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Dybryd 18:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Personal opinion here

message: A couple of the entries in External Links refer only to Lolita, no N. or his work in general. I think they should be moved to the article for that novel, or just deleted if they are already duplicated there. Okay?
Dybryd 06:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, going ahead and doing this apparently non-controversial thing. Dybryd 15:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Move Lolita-specific links to [[Lolita]]?

message: I had assumed that Boyd's biography would give me plenty on the censorship of Nabokov, but it doesn't. Although I haven't re-read the whole thing, Boyd seems to just assume Soviet censorship, and only gives a brief mention to its relaxation in the 1980s.
Can someone suggest another source for this info, or have I just not gone deeply enough into Boyd? (I have just been fishing about using the index.)
Dybryd 03:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Irrelevantly: While I realize that it's most unusual to delete talk page contributions, I've taken the liberty of deleting this one (placed here) as it was verbose yet obviously added nothing. -- Hoary (talk) 07:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Help with sources on censorship?

message: :Image:Nabokov book cover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Nabokov book cover.jpg

message: There is no mention of his death other than the date it happened. I'm at least a little curious about it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.28.85 (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While standing at his writing lectern, he collapsed heavily into his wife's arms. After bidding goodbye to beloved wife and son, died soon afterward in a Swiss hospital, which may have be substandard. Cause of death: prostate cancer.Lestrade (talk) 19:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Death

message: I note that Boyd, Brian, Vladimir Nabokov: The American years is on Google Books. 201.9.185.130 (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Googlized book

message: Besides the bad punctuation, there's a missing word here that makes it impossible to understand the sentence:
"In 1936, when Vera lost her job due to the antisemitic environment, and the assassin of his father was appointed second-in-command of the Russian émigré group, Nabokov started to look for jobs in the English-speaking world."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by JO 24 (talk • contribs) 07:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Biography typo

message: The sentence that begins, "Vera lost her job..." seems to be missing a word or words, but I can't tell what it/they might be.4.239.216.8 (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence fragment 

message: an article in the May-June 2006 Stanford Alumni magazine by Cynthia Haven []has a well-documented discussion of Nobokov journeying west by car, teaching at Stanford in 1941, and interacting with a Slavic language professor, Henry Lanz.  It would be useful to fit these events into the chronology.Jfred60606 (talk) 14:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  America section 

message: He lived in Berlin from 1922 to 1937, yet his son has claimed that he spoke "practically no German". It find it highly unlikely that someone could live in Berlin for all these years and speak "practically no German", especially at a time when foreign languages were not as widely taught in Germany as the case is today. It would be like living in New York for 14 years and speak practically no English. It would be nice to have some sources on his language abilities, and an explanation of how he managed to live in Germany for all those years without speaking the language (provided that was really the case). Sound Solkemon (talk) 17:01, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In years, when Nabokow lived in Berlin was many migrants from Ex-Russian Empire, not like fugees from colony. Possible not to learn german, because they have infrastructure (of course in WW2 period big mass of people emigrate, live in Switzerland,  or someone (almost "White russian") become officers like Mannerheim ideologicaly. Russians and germans people have  old traditions of relationship. In 1920th many Berlin's people was russian speaking. 2A00:1FA2:4460:43D6:0:5A:53AC:EA01 (talk) 21:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

text: It does seem unlikely that a man could live in a country for so long and not learn the language. However, Nabokov claimed that he chose not to learn German for fear of losing his intimate relationship with Russian. It's worth noting that while he wrote in English, French and, of course, Russian, he never published anything in German. It's plausible that he didn't have to learn German, there was a large Russian emigre population in Germany at the time, for whom Nabokov wrote(and who probably had some expectation, at first, of going home). It really depends how insular that community was, or how social Nabokov was, I know of Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants to the UK that have lived here decades and not learned English, and I'm sure there are many first generation immigrants in New York that do not speak English. But implausible or not if you want to put it on wikipedia (I suppose in connection to the Maar thing) you'll have to find some source that gives evidence of his reading the language, or if you want to include the speculation you mentioned from the German wiki, then to at least provide sufficient space for his claims to the contrary. Grcaldwell (talk) 22:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

text: It's also worth noting that Vera was gleefully anti-German. (To a colleague's German wife: "I was reminded of you every day at the hotel in California. We had 'a German maid'."). Claiming to have never learned the language is just the kind of smiling slight that would have suited the family's idea of itself. 74.95.5.249 (talk) 00:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Did he speak German?

message: I was wondering whether The Original of Laura should be placed within the Novels / English section at the bottom of the page. I feel it should be placed within the Miscellenea section. This is for a few reasons. Firstly its length makes it more of a short story or novella. Secondly as discussed in an interview the publishers themselves do not consider it a novel, more as an insight into a process which might have led to a novel. While tempting to delve into subjective questions of quality, I feel that purely on the level of form its place is in the Miscellenea section. Any other thoughts? Apologies for any breaches of talk page guidlines. This is my first post ever. Exilegoesout (talk) 01:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Original of Laura's placement 

message: The list of appearances in other media was pretty short and didn't mention Lolita. If you didn't already know which book was made into a movie, you had to got the page of every book to confirm. Therfore I took the liberty of adding a link to Lolita, expanding the original list to include several books like Despair and others, linking to both the book title and/or to the wiki page for the adapted work. I apologize if I was too aggressive. I realized afterward that I should have raised this issue on the talk page first before acting. Fairwin99 (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Media adaptations 

message: The 07:36, 16 January 2011 edit of Spanglej removed several external references without comment or rationale.  I replaced one of these - the link to a full database of images of images of the covers, dust jackets, spines, copyright page, and any points identifying the first editions of every Nabokov book that has been published in English.  Kind of a unique resource.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rknasc (talk • contribs)  
:Hi, I did give an edit summary, which is to say the edit referenced WP:LINKFARM and WP:EL. There were 22 links, which is a lot. WP:EL (External links) gives guidelines as to what to include. It states that English language sites take precedence, and that no fan sites or spam (advertising) should be included. Airflowsciences.com is a privately run website. Haaretz.com is a deadlink.  The article on "The Gay Nabokov" was given through the link to a generic citation site. I added the original article instead, as featured in Salon magazine. I think that about covers it. Because Nabokov lived in the US for so long and is so well known internationally, there are a great many resources in English. This is an encyclopaedia in English and needs to signpost to resources in English where possible. I hope  that makes the editing decision clearer. Best wishes Span (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the clarification.  By the way, Airflow Sciences, is donating space for the Nabokov website.  No advertising appears in the link. Rknasc (talk) 14:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  External References 

message: The statue is a valuable image to have in itself, but not ideal as a main image for the page. Have licensing standards for images of notable dead individuals become stricter since I was editing more actively? It used to be an area where there was a little more flexibility, since no completely free image can now be created. Has anyone thought of emailing a copyright owner for specific permission? 74.95.5.249 (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've uploaded one from Flickr with a free license. Span (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Fantastic, thanks! 74.95.5.249 (talk) 01:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there really no free photo? 

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thread_title: File:Vladimir Nabokov.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: In the Berlin Years it says "Sirin means butterfly". As far as I know this is not true. Butterfly is бабочка (babochka). Sirin is probably taken from the Russian word серый (SYEH-riy) (http://masterrussian.com/learnwords/russian-colors.htm), which means gray. This is interesting because gray appears throughout Nabokov's work as names, etc. I'm changing the article to reflect this (2/16/14) but my Russian is not that great so it's possible that this is an old translation of the word or somthing. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.230.34 (talk) 04:23, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sirin 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I would like to add a reference (into the section Further reading) to a book chapter focusing on the presence of ornament and the wallpaper pattern in Nabokov´s work, especially in Pnin. Given the fact that it was recently published in a prestigious edited volume edited by Ian Christie and indexed by Web of Science, the chapter could be very helpful to anyone interested in Nabokov´s work and its visual aspects. Please let me know if I may do it. Here are the references:
Jirsa, Tomáš (2015). "Lost in Pattern: Rococo Ornament and Its Journey to Contemporary Art through Wallpaper". In: Where Is History Today? New Ways of Representing the Past. Eds. Marcel Arbeit, Ian Christie. Olomouc: Palacký University Press, pp. 101-119. WOS:000379450400009
https://www.academia.edu/24926806/Lost_in_Pattern_Rococo_Ornament_and_Its_Journey_to_Contemporary_Art_through_Wallpaper
--Scholarwhale (talk) 11:46, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding an article into the section "Further reading/Criticism" - inquiry 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The caption for the picture of the house at 957 East State St, Ithaca NY claims this is the location where Nabokov finished Lolita.  The body of the article references Ashland, Oregon as the location citing a reference: 
I propose removing the statement from the picture capture about home in Ithaca. Any comments? DutchTreat (talk) 10:24, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location for Completion of ''Lolita'' 

message: :Jhumpa Lahiri,[80] Marisha Pessl,[81] Maxim D. Shrayer,[82] Zadie Smith,[83] and Ki Longfellow[84] have also acknowledged Nabokov's influence.
Uh-huh. Let's go through this in a bit more detail:
:Jhumpa Lahiri,"The Hum Inside the Skull, Revisited", The New York Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
Here, Jhumpa Lahiri writes about her work. And this is what she says:
:There are other writers whose influence I seek: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, Richard Yates, Andre Dubus, Alice Munro and James Salter, to name a few. But none have marked me as much as Trevor and Gallant.
So Nabokov hardly stands out; also, this is just her own say-so. 
:Marisha Pessl,"An interview with Marisha Pessl", Bookslut.com, September 2006. Retrieved 15 June 2007.
This one is OK.
:Maxim D. Shrayer,Maxim D. Shayer, "Literature Is Love," in Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration, 2007, pp. 178–85.
I haven't seen this. I note that it's Shrayer who's writing about Shrayer. Shouldn't we have an independent source for influence?
:Zadie Smith,"Zadie Smith" The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
Here's what this piece says:
:Of the classics, Smith admires Nabokov, EM Forster, Zora Neale Hurston; in contemporary writing, she has allied herself with young Americans such as Dave Eggers. The influence most commonly cited in reviews is Salman Rushdie; stylistically, some passages in The Autograph Man came on like Martin Amis.
"Admires" is not the same as "is influenced by".
:and Ki LongfellowWoman's Hour, a long-lived and popular English radio show, 1993. have also acknowledged Nabokov's influence.
Very feeble sourcing at best.
I propose to replace the (purposely?) vague "also acknowledged Nabokov's influence" with "been influenced by Nabokov", and to delete mention of all of these people except Pessl. -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: As indicated above, I've deleted mention of all these people other than Pessl. (But this is only the final part of one paragraph: what precedes it might be just as dodgy, but I haven't started to investigate.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:36, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Who he influenced

message: Nabokov was a notorious homophone,https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/21/books.booksnews and  was - following his (gay) brother's death - prejudiced against Germany. Nabokov, Vladimir Selected letters 1940–1977. San Diego, NY, L.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1989. P. 63.  "After returning to Europe, Nabokov never visited Germany, despite having lived there for 15 years".Zimmer Dieter E. Despot in meiner Welt Ein Gesprach mit Wladimir Nabokov // Die Zeil [Hamburg] 28.10.1966. S. 18 Цит. по Урбан Томас. Набоков в Берлине. М.: Аграф. с. 146 Could these not be included under views? --Glissando1234567890 (talk) 11:11, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not homophony but homophobia, I think. "A notorious homophobe" is a strong assertion and I think needs something better than a rather clickbaity mention in an (otherwise interesting) newspaper article. Is there perhaps a section on this in the Garland Companion to VN, or similar? And I don't have my copy of the selected letters at hand, so have to ask: Exactly what does it say on page 63? -- Hoary (talk) 12:55, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Views on Germany and Homosexuality 

message: In the "United States" subsection of "Life and career", there's a photo of a house in Ithaca with a caption that ends, "Here he finished Lolita and started writing Pnin." The text of that subsection, however, says, "In June 1953 Nabokov and his family went to Ashland, Oregon. There he finished Lolita and began writing the novel Pnin." So did he finish Lolita and start Pnin in New York, or was it in Oregon? Deor (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction

message: An editor has requested that :Véra Nabokova be moved to :Véra Nabokov, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You  are invited to participate in the move discussion. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move at [[Talk:Véra Nabokova]]