Nabokov's Essay: Question 4

The passage in this essay that caught my attention the most was following: "We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge." I have never thought of reading like this. I always go into reading already set with opinions. Those opinions are definitely not set in stone and are likely to change but I never realized that that can effect my entire experience. Here Nabokov is telling us we should approach a book as a brand new world. We should have no obvious connection with any other world as we read this brand new world either. Only once we have thoroughly researched this new world to our best abilities, then and only then may we consider the attachments it may have to other worlds.

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and Fredson Bowers. "Good Readers and Good Writers."Lectures on Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Print.