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Books

Vladimir Nabokov confesses to butterflies in the stomach

9 November 2019

9:00 AM

9 November 2019

9:00 AM

Not every novelist has opinions. Some of the greatest have a touch of the idiot savant, such as Adalbert Stifter, Ronald Firbank and Henry Green. And those novelists who do have opinions aren’t always worth listening to. But Vladimir Nabokov’s views are of compelling interest — paradoxically, because he regularly insisted that his novels sent no message, made no moral case and presented no argument.

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