''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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Scattered throughout Nabokov's Forewords to his own
novels, interviews he gave, rare commentaries on his
own work. (as his essay "On a Book Entitled Lolita")
and his works themselves are a great number of statements
- serious, ironical or parodistic - which offer
valuable insights into his conception of art. These
are supported by his treatment in The Gift of the views
of the nineteenth century Russian journalist, critic
and novelist N. G. Chernyshevskii. Briefly stated, what
emerges from all. these sources is that Nabokov wants
art to be created, evaluated, and enjoyed for its
artistic values alone, independent of any "purposes"
or "ideas" or ulterior motives. He dismisses the
suggestion that any utility or morality should be
attributed to his art "with the same scorn that he
once made use of when a clubwoman asked him what butterflies
were for. "1
"Nothing bores me more than political novels", he
says, "and the literature of social intent"2, and
"I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no
general ideas to exploit... "3 And speaking in more
general terms: "A work of art has no importance whatever
to society. "4
To save his own novels from gross misinterpretations
he states plainly in some of his Forewords how his
novels should not be read, and which considerations
the reader had better leave aside. The Introduction
to Bend Sinister, for example, even though