NABOKV-L discussion

Zadie Smith writes in Changing My Mind (2009):

Just before Humbert Humbert meets Mrs. Haze, the mother of the girl who will go on to obsess and destroy him, his gaze falls on “an old gray tennis ball that lay on an oak chest.” This tennis ball has nothing whatsoever to do with the grand themes of Lolita—it “just is,” and in this is beautiful. (208)

Greetings, 

We posted last April about our book, Rhyming with Redeemer, and were so grateful for your emailed feedback! We've written two new articles on Lolita, which we wanted to share here as well: 

"Nabokov, Cruelty, and the Puzzle of Lolita" 

"World War II and the Buried Solution in Lolita" 

In an article in today’s New York Times (Nov. 25, 2025), “I’m a Professor. A.I. Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse,” Nabokov features in a return to the blue book.

Many teachers have changed the way they test students. That often means returning to old-school pen-and-paper exams — thereby contributing to the comeback of the blue book, a horseshoe-crab-like relic of primordial ed tech that A.I. has saved from extinction….

Here is the reference:

I would like to give a “shout out” to Marilyn Edelstein.

I just read Marilyn Edelstein’s most excellent paper, “Pale Fire: The Art of Consciousness,” in “Nabokov’s 5th Arc.” (1982). I was stunned to find someone who had (in 1982) a take on Pale Fire that so closely aligns with my first reading of it in 2017. That is, her understanding of the three-part consciousness of man, as manifested in Kinbote, Shade, and Gradus.

From Shelley’s The Cenci:

What does everyone think of the new Vintage International edition covers for a few VN books, attached?  I've seen them in bookstores already.  Overall I'm not that impressed.  I guess I'm glad they reverted to The Defense.  Lolita has a new introduction too, which I'm also not that impressed by.

It seems obvious to me that Nabokov was writing under the influence of Hoffmann, or at least the culture that Hoffmann created.  I'm reaching out see if there's ever been an study tracing the Hoffmannian influences in VN's work.  The automannequins in KQK, obviously.  And that one seems to me to be his most "German" book.  But he never listed Hoffmann among his literary influences (though maybe by proxy through Poe).

What other examples can we think of that support the Hoffmann -> Nabokov pipeline?  The two authors read remarkably similarly to me.

Dear Nabokovians,