structures." He describe himself as a detective of literature. I think that this is a very apt way of opening this essay. He starts right off by telling his exact intent in the essay: to solve the mystery of literary structures. He does indeed tell us exactly what he intends to persuade us of through this essay, but that still leaves open for us to imagine exactly what that beholds. In order to find that out, we must read on. He gives us just enough for us to know what the essay is about, but leaves enough room to make us need to know more and adventure on. Nabokov's essay doesn't have a straight forward closing paragraph, but he does give us a sentence at the end of the last paragraph that says it all: "Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual we shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass." This last sentence wraps up the essay by leaving readers with a feeling of responsibility. We have the task of witnessing authors building their card castles and watching them become beautiful steel and glass castles.
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and Fredson Bowers. "Good Readers and Good Writers."Lectures on Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Print.
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