"No doubt, there do exist certain stylistic links between this book and, say, my earlier stories (or my later Bend Sinister); but there are none between it and Le Chateu or The Trial. Spiritual affinities have no place in my concept of literary criticism, but if I did have to choose a kindred soul, it would certainly be that great artist [Kafka] rather than G.H. Orwell or other popular purveyors of illustrated ideas and publicist fiction."
~V.N.
Please don't burn it, Dmitri. And please don't be hysterical, Ron. The idea that we can be wrong about Lolita and the rest of the Nabokov canon because of Laura is to say that there is a Reality to be misled about. And, as the great man himself said, "Reality is one of the few words which mean nothing without quotes." Another, I submit, is "misled."
"If I had asked somebody to promise to destroy something of mine, [and then I died], and they didn't do it I would feel it to be a grave personal betrayal [if I were still alive]."
