By way of the transcripts of the
interviews, if that is indeed an accurate term in this case, (more like a chess
game played via post) Nabokov comes across certainly as intelligent and
linguistically gifted; however, he seems also self-possessed, opinionated as
well as stubborn (though, I think, these are not uncommon attributes among
writers). That said, I do applaud
his ability to communicate coherently and gracefully in an unnatural language:
I thought too, as a matter of course, of Joseph Conrad, for whom English was a
third language, and who also had the extraordinary ability to arrange words in
clever and colorful ways. Furthermore,
his techniques for approaching the physical act of writing are interesting and,
I think, widely applicable and valuable tools from which one might learn.
