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

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(24-25). He talks about how he ingratiated himself
with the poet and boasts of his friendship with him
(14f.; 22f.; 27). He adopts an unpleasantly indulgent
and patronizing tone when talking of Shade. His worst
crime, however, is that he does not content himself
with his part of an editor, which is a subordinate
one, but that he steps in with his criticism, and
that he pretends that he has inspired the poet.
Nabokov can be indifferent to criticism ("... I yawn
and forget"30), he can be ironical about critics31
he can scorn their various ways of approach32, but
,
he does not tolerate those who presume that they
"know better" than the artist, who offer suggestions
as to what should have been different in a finished
work, or who try to advise the artist on the yet unfinished
work, those, in short, who do not respect
the integrity of the artist and of his work of art.
Kinbote's unqualified criticism of Canto III: "that
shocking tour de force" (13) (breaking the promise
of objectivity on the very first page) is harmless.
But then he criticises Shade for deciding to discard
some of his drafts (16); he suggests "in all modesty"
that Shade was going to ask his advice (16), and he
finally implies that the inspiration for the whole
work came really from him (17): with all this he is
(or seems to be) established not only as, an incompet-
ent scholar, but as one of those "pompous avuncular
brutes who ... attempt 'to make suggestions', ', who
do not see that "a point of art" is often "a point
of honor", and whom Nabokov, when he encounters them,