The sentence quoted by reviewer Rinaldo Gama [for the
Brazilian 2013 edition of "Contos Reunidos" - "The Stories of Vladimir
Nabokov"] came from VN's commentaries to "A Slice of Life":
"What
was your purpose, sir, in penning this story, forty years ago in Berlin? Well, I did pen
it (for I never learned to type and the long reign of the 3B pencil, capped with
an eraser, was to start much later—in parked motorcars and motels); but I had
never any "purpose" in mind when writing stories—for myself, my wife, and half a
dozen dear dead chuckling friends."
Roy Johnson, in his VN-L commentary to this short-story,
notes that Nabokov "returns to the seedy and vulgar side of emigre
existence to explore a part of it which is almost the polar opposite of the joys
of literary creation ...All the characters in 'A Slice of Life' are horrendously
degenerate, self-seeking and crude...First of all he chose one of this vulgar
company as first person narrator... And the second novelty, a strategy he used
only once in all of his work [known to me] is that the narrator is a
woman."
However, Nabokov's comments about his "dear dead chuckling friends"
contradicts, in part, Roy Johnson's observation (this story lies at
"the polar opposite of the joys of literary creation"), perhaps because what
are more often remembered, or quoted, are Nabokov's definitions of
"aesthetic bliss"* or the descriptions that emphasize his overall
"compassionate" perspective...
...................................................................................................................................
* - "For me a work of fiction exists only insofar
as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of
being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art
(curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the
norm. . . "