I have organized my whole life around Nabokov, my interior life anyway. His philosophy and what he wrote regarding art, poetry and consciousness, all of that is sublime to me. I'll spend the rest of my life in an effort to become articulate about how the patterns fit together.
Whoever did it - thanks for uploading. It is quite a feeling to hear Nabokov's russian first time in the life, and not only that, but reading first words of "Lolita".
yes, really interesting how although he definitely mastered the written english language, he still sounds much more natural and confident when speaking in his native russian
I don't see the mention anywhere in the comments so forgive my excitement if you're already aware, but do you know how I found your clip? Via the New York Times in an article titled "His Father's Best Translator" dedicated to Dimitri Nabokov. The article ends with Dimitri in his wheelchair, leaning in and crying as he watched your clip.
@michelangeli23 I love them both! They do have a lot in common. But Nabokov had a Jewish wife and simply could not forgive the fact that Dostoevsky was convinced that Jews were not good for Russia (he foresaw the Jewish revolution in Russia that destroyed it.
Some of Nabokov's opinions about "the Great Letterature's Authors", belongs to his private war against psycho-social academy of the artistic conception...That's why Dostoevskij and Freud were two from his favourites targets! This will not stop me to appreciate him!!!
@guschavoman Great choices! Nabokov wrote that one of the greatest Love stories was Anna Karenina. This my fav. Tolstoy's novel! It is perfect in every way, even though Tolstoy did not like it that much. Idiot by Dostoevsky is another fav. of mine. Obviously I cannot appreciate Nabokov in English but whatever he wrote in his native language is superb. As for translations of his English novels into Russian, I always feel that it is a translation (except Lolita, but he did that one himself)
True, however Nabokov's reason to change Tolstoy's famous quote was to ridicule mistranslations of Russian classics.This was described by him in the annotations he wrote for "Ada,or Ardor".
We know Nabokov"s Not a Genius -- He's a Supergenius of 20th Century Literature and especially a richly diabolical wit when satirizing mid-20th Century American mainstream culture. He makes imbeciles not only of the hoi polloi but also wields a virulent disdain for much of what we've been spoon fed to consider Great Literature. Example: Thomas Mann is widely considered a European in parallel elite circles as of such vaunted status as Americans consider Henry James, Hemingway & Fitzgerald among a small handful of other novelists. But Nabokov loves dismissing Thomas Mann as a Big Fake, and therein lies one of VN's very few limitations: the inability to feel intimately about those of his and other novelists' characters when they don't fit preconceived notions of emotional limitations and reduced potential for genuine intimacy… When you watch this video and hear the putdown of Death In Venice you must certainly curtail one's previous unlimited opinion of Nabokov's genius.. QED But I'm about to post another video of VN with Lionel Trilling, whose lack of renown now should in no way change his status as one of the greatest literary/cultural minds of the early to mid-20th century, so it's a great thrill to see them in such an intimate interview together.
Do not be so confident about what Nabokov really felt and thought. Nabokov's Alter Ego would not go that far, haha. N. had no reasons to "hate" Dostoevsky, but the latter was an open anti-Semite. Have you read "The Possessed"? Read any memories from the 20-s, 30-s? The term "Jewish Revolution" was widely accepted in Russian emigre circles. No need to discuss Bolshevik leaders & their nationalities here. Just don't be oblivious to the documented facts about HOW October Revolution was perceived.
@Ivorybird09 Lolita was originally written in english. And i'm pretty sure he was, at the very least, involved in all the translations of his work being trilingual.
@chuckles22... I meant Ada and other novels translated after his death. As for LOLITA, yes, it was written in a foreign language for VN (as I am saying I cannot say how well, I am not English, but the Russian translation is DEFINITELY done by him.)
Personally, I agree with Nabokov's opinion of Dostoevsky, however, there are some points on which I differ. I'm currently reading "Crime and Punishment" for my third time, and I vain struggle to see much "artistic value" in it and value more the theme than the artistic emphasis in which I had always assumed the novel would have been written in.
I wonder what he would think about the Godzilla movie coming out in 2019, with this huge Mothra in it. Especially the preview using DeBussy's Clair de Lune as it spreads it wings in the rain.
Thank you! And I think you're talking about poshlost, but I can't see why he would have attributed that quality to Dostoevsky's writing, particularly since I think he praises it in Gogol.
Лучший, спору нет.На той высоте искусства где нет хорошо или плохо или заниматься морализаторством... Подобное возможно лишь в живописи или музыке, ну ещё у Гоголя...
Он позёр, а не гений. Гении это Толстой, Гоголь, Достоевский, Манн. Этот хрен просто понаписал лабуды всякой высокопарной, вот и прославился. Аристократическая этакая морда, тьфу.
I'd never actually heard Nabokov admit to being the enemy of humility, though I'd always assumed it. He sort of takes the sting out of the criticism when he admits to it himself.
He writes disparagingly about Dostoevsky in his biographical study of Gogol--whom he adored. It's been four or five decades since I read it but he makes reference, I believe, to a Russian idiomatic usage patchlachi (sic?), a kind of garish gesture or vulgarity that he ascribes to Mann in Death in Venice. He expresses disgust that Dostoevsky lets ideas rather than language drive his literary impulse.They''re really at opposite ends of the literary spectrum. But not so much I would say in Lolita!
He expresses disgust that Dostoevsky lets ideas rather than language drive his literary impulse.---in other words, he is an idiot. not bad writer, but far from great
"Texture of Time" became an essay inside a novel in the name of "Ada or Ardour". In another later Nabokov novel, it appears under the vilely twisted name of "Substance of Space"
What is he getting at? Death in Venice isn't THAT bad. I love this guy - I really do - but sometimes he says/writes something and I just think.... whaaaaaat? Excellent video though! Kudos on tracking this footage down!
he didn’t enjoy killing them and he wrote about that, but it’s never a surprise to be attacked by someone writing or acting in complete ignorance - and all the more so if they have been incentivized to do so, whether because they are earning a little over mimimum wage somewhere (for example, as a security guard who has been handed a brief on a particular person identified as a “security concern”) or if they happen to be one of those minor marionettes in Bunraku who, due to their insignificance to the greater plot, lack three independent handlers, and have only two or, the most unfortunate of all, only one, poor things... But yes - you can convince a community with thousands of Jews right here in the United States that someone is a “security concern” if the incentivation is sufficient, whether by opportune donstions or well-placed operators, even if that person is being demonized PRECISELY because of jis track record foe keeping Jewish profiteers in the “restitution finance” industry from making hundreds of millions of dollars thanks the low-hanging fruit before them, offered up precisely because of longstanding alliances wirh the perpetratoes of ths Shoah - and not a goddamn one of them will bother even to object when that Jew and his family are persecuted right before them, let slone give them rhe tabls scraps off their Thanksgiving dinners but I digress
One a metaphor for the other. Little fictional girls chloroformed and pinned to a literary cabinet of sexual curiosities for child connoisseurs to slaver over for all eternity.
Nabokv thougt of himself to be an expert in many things. Psychoanalyst of sexual abnormality,. Butterflys, Chess, Lawer and so on. But he wasnt an expert in this things. The only thing in which he was an expert was writing in colors, what he leaned from his mother. In Lolita he abused this art to make us common and defend the crimes of violiting little girls, kill, envenane and tortur Human beeings using the nbokoiv style. Writing Lolita he tried to escape from the cage, like the ape who intented to escape form his cage painting the walls, what forced him to write Lolita. Three times he tride to burn the manusscript of Lolita His wife, vera, saved it for the curious reader. We are always curious to know the depths of our black souls, because we are no more childs. We lost this inocncy reading Lolita.
1. he was a chess grandmaster 2. harvard's museum of comparative zoology adopted his method of entomology, a paradigmatic shift in science i dont normally reply to youtube comments but you need to be singled out
ha ha, Nabokov never was a international chess grandmaster He never studied zooloy, he and his wife went dayly to hunt these beauties, they killed them an put needles into them to collect them, instead of making photografs of them. What a cruel Harvard method is that. You want me to be singled out, so for me you are a Faschist
Ich bin Keunstler und habe jedes jahr grosse Austellungen in Bayern und auf den kanariscehn Inseln, da werde ich wohl etwas von Kust verstehen. Ich habe niemals behuaptet das nabokov ein schlechter Schriftsteller sei. er ist einer der GRossen Genies. Ich habe niemals behauptet, dass Lolita ein unmoralisches Buch sei. Unterlassen sie ihre polemischen persoenlichen Angriffe und falschen Anschuldigungen. Lesen sie mein Kommentar genauer und lassen sie mich in Ruhe sie Idiot
Lothar Mayring Dass Sie Künstler sind oder sich dafür halten, heißt noch nicht, dass Sie was von Kunst verstehen. Sie schrieben: "In Lolita he abused this art to make us common and defend the crimes of violiting little girls, kill, envenane and tortur Human beeings using the nbokoiv style." Vielleicht liegt es an Ihrem schlechten Englisch, aber das wirkt doch sehr nach einem moralischen Argument. Wenn sie behaupten, dass er seine Kunst missbraucht, um uns dazu zu bringen, die Taten eines Kinderschänders zu verteidigen, dann ist das ein moralischer Vorwurf. Dass Sie da so pikiert reagieren, verstehe ich nicht, ist wohl die sensible Künstlerseele. Obwohl Sie ja beim Austeilen von direkten Beleidigungen und Faschismusvorwürfen nicht so zimperlich sind. Wenn Sie mit Ihrer Ignoranz an die Öffentlichkeit gehen, dann kommen Sie halt drauf klar, dass man Sie mitunter auch polemisch angeht.
nabokov hated psychoanalysis. he called freud the "Viennese quack," while his writings, both fictional and non-fictional, are riddled with swings at psychoanalysis. he mentioned repeatedly about his hope that psychoanalysis would die. so it's doubtful he thought of himself as an expert psychoanalyst. he did know a lot about chess and butterflies, more than most. but no where does he describe himself using the word "expert." so you lack textual evidence for your claim. and you're also wrong, he DID study zoology for a time, and was also curator of lepidoptery at the harvard museum of comparative zoology. those butterflies you moralize him for killing are possibly still on display there. he wasn't exactly some rogue sadistic butterfly catcher as you seem to paint him. killing and dissection is standard practice in biology. i had to do it in my undergrad etymology course. not to mention, it would be ridiculous to dismiss the self-taught knowledge of someone with nabokov's level of intellect. some of his theories have even been proven correct since his death thanks to new gene-sequencing technology. that said, not being a world champion or professional zoologist doesn't forbid him from speaking authoritatively on the matters. if it did, then neither would you be allowed to spew your generalizations and assumptions about him and lolita's readers. since you don't appear to be a nabokov expert. did you know that nabokov himself was sexually abused as a child? given that, do you actually think the book is defending child abuse? some of those scenes are ripped straight out of his life. no doubt he had his moral faults. he was sexist and homophobic, to what extent is arguable and likely changed throughout his life. but nowhere did he defend child abuse. and no doubt idols should be brought down to earth for their moral faults. but nabokov is an artistic and literary idol, not a moral one. he was also, and continues to be through his non-fiction writings, a great teacher. he has and continues to inspire and provide guidance for thousands, perhaps millions, of aspiring writers and readers, whose motivations i assure you go far deeper than supposedly wanting to defend child abuse. if anything, nabokov was an expert in conjuring up worlds and images, and captivating people with them. to this end, he cast himself as many things. but anyone who understands him knows to take these postures with a grain of salt. the fabrications, the embellishments, the indeterminacy are all just a part of his magic. nabokov's genius was partly that he turned himself, with all his faults and arrogance, into a work of art. attacking him, a dead man from a longer dead culture, is just gratuitous. his flaws, once again, are a part of his magic.
Pale Fire deeply impacts my life, day to day. I cannot express my gratitude to this man enough, a lingual master. A savant of prose.
I still hear "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain" in my head from time to time
I have organized my whole life around Nabokov, my interior life anyway. His philosophy and what he wrote regarding art, poetry and consciousness, all of that is sublime to me. I'll spend the rest of my life in an effort to become articulate about how the patterns fit together.
Memorize the 999 line poem and don’t forget “I was the shadow of the waxwing / “
Tell me more!
Within the next 50 years, he'll have become a much greater writer than he already is - he hasn't been dead long enough
Sex and crime always sell good and make famous, but in an negativ sense.
What sense has it to read Lolita.
Lothar Mayring You sir, are asinine.
Lothar Mayring if sex and crime were all you needed to become a famous writer, i would've become famous when i was 12.
@@lotharmayring6063 you need to actually read the book. Lolita is an incredibly sophisticated novel.
@@trewens i dont like this disgusting stuff, even when its good written
Whoever did it - thanks for uploading. It is quite a feeling to hear Nabokov's russian first time in the life, and not only that, but reading first words of "Lolita".
yes, really interesting how although he definitely mastered the written english language, he still sounds much more natural and confident when speaking in his native russian
@@doelette7400 this passage indeed sounds much better in Russian
My favorite writer.......Absolute star in literature heaven. Thanks a lot.
I don't see the mention anywhere in the comments so forgive my excitement if you're already aware, but do you know how I found your clip? Via the New York Times in an article titled "His Father's Best Translator" dedicated to Dimitri Nabokov. The article ends with Dimitri in his wheelchair, leaning in and crying as he watched your clip.
Great writer. Through about 5-6 of his short stories. Stylish stuff. “Laughter in the dark” holds up as some of the best i’ve read so far.
@michelangeli23
I love them both! They do have a lot in common. But Nabokov had a Jewish wife and simply could not forgive the fact that Dostoevsky was convinced that Jews were not good for Russia (he foresaw the Jewish revolution in Russia that destroyed it.
Some of Nabokov's opinions about "the Great Letterature's Authors", belongs to his private war against psycho-social academy of the artistic conception...That's why Dostoevskij and Freud were two from his favourites targets! This will not stop me to appreciate him!!!
His son Dmitri was astonishingly beautiful, and I love how he is a satirist just like in his novels❤
Astonishingly beautiful maybe not, but certainly charming. Your channel contains some astonishingly beautiful movies, though.
@guschavoman Great choices! Nabokov wrote that one of the greatest Love stories was Anna Karenina. This my fav. Tolstoy's novel! It is perfect in every way, even though Tolstoy did not like it that much. Idiot by Dostoevsky is another fav. of mine. Obviously I cannot appreciate Nabokov in English but whatever he wrote in his native language is superb. As for translations of his English novels into Russian, I always feel that it is a translation (except Lolita, but he did that one himself)
True, however Nabokov's reason to change Tolstoy's famous quote was to ridicule mistranslations of Russian classics.This was described by him in the annotations he wrote for "Ada,or Ardor".
im big fan if nabokov and dostoyevsky!
Nabokov despised dosnoyevsky btw
He was wrong about Faulkner.
who was a better writer than he was.
We know Nabokov"s Not a Genius -- He's a Supergenius of 20th Century Literature and especially a richly diabolical wit when satirizing mid-20th Century American mainstream culture. He makes imbeciles not only of the hoi polloi but also wields a virulent disdain for much of what we've been spoon fed to consider Great Literature. Example: Thomas Mann is widely considered a European in parallel elite circles as of such vaunted status as Americans consider Henry James, Hemingway & Fitzgerald among a small handful of other novelists. But Nabokov loves dismissing Thomas Mann as a Big Fake, and therein lies one of VN's very few limitations: the inability to feel intimately about those of his and other novelists' characters when they don't fit preconceived notions of emotional limitations and reduced potential for genuine intimacy… When you watch this video and hear the putdown of Death In Venice you must certainly curtail one's previous unlimited opinion of Nabokov's genius.. QED But I'm about to post another video of VN with Lionel Trilling, whose lack of renown now should in no way change his status as one of the greatest literary/cultural minds of the early to mid-20th century, so it's a great thrill to see them in such an intimate interview together.
Do not be so confident about what Nabokov really felt and thought. Nabokov's Alter Ego would not go that far, haha. N. had no reasons to "hate" Dostoevsky, but the latter was an open anti-Semite. Have you read "The Possessed"? Read any memories from the 20-s, 30-s? The term "Jewish Revolution" was widely accepted in Russian emigre circles. No need to discuss Bolshevik leaders & their nationalities here. Just don't be oblivious to the documented facts about HOW October Revolution was perceived.
Oh I am the 75000th
look at this tangle of thorns Mr.Nabokov
bend sinister and pale fire are my favourites
@Ivorybird09 Lolita was originally written in english. And i'm pretty sure he was, at the very least, involved in all the translations of his work being trilingual.
Nov. 17 The Original of Laura is coming out. Don't know if you had heard about it but I'm excited.
@chuckles22... I meant Ada and other novels translated after his death. As for LOLITA, yes, it was written in a foreign language for VN (as I am saying I cannot say how well, I am not English, but the Russian translation is DEFINITELY done by him.)
Am hipnotized person makes love to a chair "laughs hard"
Personally, I agree with Nabokov's opinion of Dostoevsky, however, there are some points on which I differ. I'm currently reading "Crime and Punishment" for my third time, and I vain struggle to see much "artistic value" in it and value more the theme than the artistic emphasis in which I had always assumed the novel would have been written in.
Happy Birthday, Master ! One of the greatest for ever
I wonder what he would think about the Godzilla movie coming out in 2019, with this huge Mothra in it. Especially the preview using DeBussy's Clair de Lune as it spreads it wings in the rain.
Poshlost
Thank you! And I think you're talking about poshlost, but I can't see why he would have attributed that quality to Dostoevsky's writing, particularly since I think he praises it in Gogol.
They must be. I think it's the essay chapter that Van writes.
Лучший, спору нет.На той высоте искусства где нет хорошо или плохо или заниматься морализаторством... Подобное возможно лишь в живописи или музыке, ну ещё у Гоголя...
Он позёр, а не гений. Гении это Толстой, Гоголь, Достоевский, Манн. Этот хрен просто понаписал лабуды всякой высокопарной, вот и прославился. Аристократическая этакая морда, тьфу.
I agree with you @theangleoftheodd.
Notes from the Underground on the other hand...(and really all of Dosto's shorts, especially White Nights.)
Was this guy a nomad
He left America for Europe; this
Was a tacit way of saying goodbye
To English. A lover sticks to his love:
He has never loved English deep enough.
Thank you again so MUCH for posting this gem!
I spoke to him he speaks perfect English.
When and where did this event take place?
He was too playful with words to be considered a serious writer
His old Russia and his new America become mere parodies in his hands
@disturbiapixie Wait, where was he dismissive of Dostoevsky? I didn't see anything in this video.
They could be printed in a single volume :P But I guess the original writer makes the complete TALES, anyway.
I'd never actually heard Nabokov admit to being the enemy of humility, though I'd always assumed it. He sort of takes the sting out of the criticism when he admits to it himself.
@Beingmeansliberty
Indeed, he's a good writer and a great stylist.
@rubyrose456 yes, he is my favorit too
He writes disparagingly about Dostoevsky in his biographical study of Gogol--whom he adored. It's been four or five decades since I read it but he makes reference, I believe, to a Russian idiomatic usage patchlachi (sic?), a kind of garish gesture or vulgarity that he ascribes to Mann in Death in Venice. He expresses disgust that Dostoevsky lets ideas rather than language drive his literary impulse.They''re really at opposite ends of the literary spectrum. But not so much I would say in Lolita!
He expresses disgust that Dostoevsky lets ideas rather than language drive his literary impulse.---in other words, he is an idiot. not bad writer, but far from great
Poshlost*
Thank you! I think PrinceAndrey above gives a citation. :)
Essa erudicao deveria ter sido difundida com mais propriedade.
things that make you say 'hmm'
and slaves are proudly declaring :"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant!"
Dante? What did he say?
But why?
oh, please...
fantastic !
Great comment!
I've been looking for a book of poetry written by Nabokov, but can't find one.
U r lucky cause his poetry is even crappier than his prose🤮
he should stick to chess puzzles
what book is he talking about @ 1:53 ? was it ever finished
It should be 'Ada, Or Ardor' by the sound of it.
"Texture of Time" became an essay inside a novel in the name of "Ada or Ardour". In another later Nabokov novel, it appears under the vilely twisted name of "Substance of Space"
He detests "the moment of truth"? What on earth does he mean by that?
It's a cliché, though, knowing him, there may be more complicated answers.:-)
What is he getting at? Death in Venice isn't THAT bad. I love this guy - I really do - but sometimes he says/writes something and I just think.... whaaaaaat?
Excellent video though! Kudos on tracking this footage down!
It's amazing how he writes so distinctly about child abuse but how can he catch and kill beautiful butterflies for a hobby?
he didn’t enjoy killing them and he wrote about that, but it’s never a surprise to be attacked by someone writing or acting in complete ignorance - and all the more so if they have been incentivized to do so, whether because they are earning a little over mimimum wage somewhere (for example, as a security guard who has been handed a brief on a particular person identified as a “security concern”) or if they happen to be one of those minor marionettes in Bunraku who, due to their insignificance to the greater plot, lack three independent handlers, and have only two or, the most unfortunate of all, only one, poor things...
But yes - you can convince a community with thousands of Jews right here in the United States that someone is a “security concern” if the incentivation is sufficient, whether by opportune donstions or well-placed operators, even if that person is being demonized PRECISELY because of jis track record foe keeping Jewish profiteers in the “restitution finance” industry from making hundreds of millions of dollars thanks the low-hanging fruit before them, offered up precisely because of longstanding alliances wirh the perpetratoes of ths Shoah - and not a goddamn one of them will bother even to object when that Jew and his family are persecuted right before them, let slone give them rhe tabls scraps off their Thanksgiving dinners
but I digress
One a metaphor for the other. Little fictional girls chloroformed and pinned to a literary cabinet of sexual curiosities for child connoisseurs to slaver over for all eternity.
Nabokv thougt of himself to be an expert in many things.
Psychoanalyst of sexual abnormality,.
Butterflys,
Chess,
Lawer
and so on.
But he wasnt an expert in this things.
The only thing in which he was an expert was writing in colors, what he leaned from his mother.
In Lolita he abused this art to make us common and defend the crimes
of violiting little girls, kill, envenane and tortur Human beeings using
the nbokoiv style.
Writing Lolita he tried to escape from the cage, like the ape who intented to escape form his cage
painting the walls, what forced him to write Lolita.
Three times he tride to burn the manusscript of Lolita
His wife, vera, saved it for the curious reader.
We are always curious to know the depths of our black souls, because we are no more childs.
We lost this inocncy reading Lolita.
1. he was a chess grandmaster
2. harvard's museum of comparative zoology adopted his method of entomology, a paradigmatic shift in science
i dont normally reply to youtube comments but you need to be singled out
ha ha,
Nabokov never was a international chess grandmaster
He never studied zooloy, he and his wife went dayly to hunt these beauties, they killed them an put needles into them to collect them, instead of making photografs of them. What a cruel Harvard method is that.
You want me to be singled out, so for me you are a Faschist
Ich bin Keunstler und habe jedes jahr grosse Austellungen in Bayern und auf den kanariscehn Inseln, da werde ich wohl etwas von Kust verstehen.
Ich habe niemals behuaptet das nabokov ein schlechter Schriftsteller sei. er ist einer der GRossen Genies.
Ich habe niemals behauptet, dass Lolita ein unmoralisches Buch sei.
Unterlassen sie ihre polemischen persoenlichen Angriffe und falschen Anschuldigungen. Lesen sie mein Kommentar genauer und lassen sie mich in Ruhe sie Idiot
Lothar Mayring
Dass Sie Künstler sind oder sich dafür halten, heißt noch nicht, dass Sie was von Kunst verstehen. Sie schrieben:
"In Lolita he abused this art to make us common and defend the crimes
of violiting little girls, kill, envenane and tortur Human beeings using
the nbokoiv style."
Vielleicht liegt es an Ihrem schlechten Englisch, aber das wirkt doch sehr nach einem moralischen Argument. Wenn sie behaupten, dass er seine Kunst missbraucht, um uns dazu zu bringen, die Taten eines Kinderschänders zu verteidigen, dann ist das ein moralischer Vorwurf. Dass Sie da so pikiert reagieren, verstehe ich nicht, ist wohl die sensible Künstlerseele. Obwohl Sie ja beim Austeilen von direkten Beleidigungen und Faschismusvorwürfen nicht so zimperlich sind. Wenn Sie mit Ihrer Ignoranz an die Öffentlichkeit gehen, dann kommen Sie halt drauf klar, dass man Sie mitunter auch polemisch angeht.
nabokov hated psychoanalysis. he called freud the "Viennese quack," while his writings, both fictional and non-fictional, are riddled with swings at psychoanalysis. he mentioned repeatedly about his hope that psychoanalysis would die. so it's doubtful he thought of himself as an expert psychoanalyst.
he did know a lot about chess and butterflies, more than most. but no where does he describe himself using the word "expert." so you lack textual evidence for your claim. and you're also wrong, he DID study zoology for a time, and was also curator of lepidoptery at the harvard museum of comparative zoology. those butterflies you moralize him for killing are possibly still on display there. he wasn't exactly some rogue sadistic butterfly catcher as you seem to paint him. killing and dissection is standard practice in biology. i had to do it in my undergrad etymology course. not to mention, it would be ridiculous to dismiss the self-taught knowledge of someone with nabokov's level of intellect. some of his theories have even been proven correct since his death thanks to new gene-sequencing technology.
that said, not being a world champion or professional zoologist doesn't forbid him from speaking authoritatively on the matters. if it did, then neither would you be allowed to spew your generalizations and assumptions about him and lolita's readers. since you don't appear to be a nabokov expert. did you know that nabokov himself was sexually abused as a child? given that, do you actually think the book is defending child abuse? some of those scenes are ripped straight out of his life.
no doubt he had his moral faults. he was sexist and homophobic, to what extent is arguable and likely changed throughout his life. but nowhere did he defend child abuse. and no doubt idols should be brought down to earth for their moral faults. but nabokov is an artistic and literary idol, not a moral one.
he was also, and continues to be through his non-fiction writings, a great teacher. he has and continues to inspire and provide guidance for thousands, perhaps millions, of aspiring writers and readers, whose motivations i assure you go far deeper than supposedly wanting to defend child abuse.
if anything, nabokov was an expert in conjuring up worlds and images, and captivating people with them. to this end, he cast himself as many things. but anyone who understands him knows to take these postures with a grain of salt. the fabrications, the embellishments, the indeterminacy are all just a part of his magic. nabokov's genius was partly that he turned himself, with all his faults and arrogance, into a work of art. attacking him, a dead man from a longer dead culture, is just gratuitous. his flaws, once again, are a part of his magic.