After talking recently to a Nabokovian about what V. was like out in the field, some of his remarks came to mind that may (or may not) be of interest.  Given that he was a man of strong opinions and not hesitant to express them, they may well have been reported elsewhere. In any event, he was much taken with anagrams and palindromes, such as his own Vivian Darkbloom, but others he cited that I recall include "T. S. Eliot" which spelled backwards, slightly transposed, is "toilets," while" letom" backwards , the Russian for "in the summer time" becomes "motel" in English, significant because the Nabokovs made do with motels in the summer time  while he chased after butterflies.  On television, two favorites were Jayne Meadows ("She has big teeth") and Lawrence Welk ("So anti-artistic"). And "Salvador Dali was Norman Rockwell's twin brother who had been kidnapped by gypsies." 

 

As for writers, V. admired Robbe-Grillet, but had disdain for Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, and Thomas Mann's works were "a great block of concrete."  Asked about Gaito Gazdanov, an emigre writer in Paris whose novels, Buddha's Return, and The Specter of Alexander Wolf, brought V.'s  early works to my mind, he shuddered and dismissed him as "that cabdriver." 

 

  RHB