Arnie Perlstein: As some of
you here in this Nabokov Forum will recall, I've made
various claims in the past few years about Nabokov
having secretly been an extreme Janeite, covertly
alluding to Austen's novels in a variety of ways.I’ve
long believed that Nabokov (in the subversive
tradition previously observed by C. Bronte and M.
Twain) merely pretended to damn Jane Austen’s writing
with faint praise, while simultaneously covertly
winking, to those with eyes to see, his subtle,
sophisticated, complex homage to Jane Austen’s fiction.
Jansy Mello: Why did Nabokov only covertly wink to a
special kind of reader, instead of referring directly to
Jane Austen? He lavished some praise on her in his
Lectures without forgetting to emphasize her “feminine”
style. I’ve forgotten the names of some of the other
women writers or poets whose writings he admired or
dwelt upon (Colette?), but it was quite rare. I expect
there are articles dedicated to investigate VN and the
female authors. Can anyone indicate a bibliography
related to this theme?