The Most Intimidating Literary Man to Interview

The trilingual Vladimir Nabokov’s English might have been an adopted tongue (the sheer conceit of using that phrase for the author of Lolita and Pale Fire!), but we are perfectly aware of the mastery of his lacerating prose.  Certainly Ezra Pound felt personally wounded when Nabokov called him a “total fake,” and the same feeling must have resonated when Saul Bellow was cruelly labeled a “miserable mediocrity” in a private letter by Nabokov. But with the master safely gone, we can present our list of his most disdainful and fascinating quotations. read more.