Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky - Vladimir Nabokov (essay date 1940)
Vladimir Nabokov (essay date 1940)
SOURCE: "Fyodor Dostoevski: 'Memoirs from a Mousehole'," in his Lectures on Russian Literature, edited by Fredson Bowers, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981, pp. 115-25.
[A Russian-born American man of letters, Nabokov was a prolific contributor to many literary fields. In the following excerpt from his lecture on Notes from the Underground, composed in about 1940, Nabokov derisively summarizes the plot of the novella, noting with displeasure Dostoevsky's use of generalities and his diffuse literary style, but applauding the humor, particularly in Chapter Four of the book's second section.]
The story whose title should be "Memoirs from Under the Floor," or "Memoirs from a Mousehole" bears in translation the stupidly incorrect title of Notes from the Underground. The story may be deemed by some a case history, a streak of persecution mania, with variations. My interest in it is limited...
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