Argumentative Response to Good Readers and Good WritersArgumentative Response to Good Readers and Good WritersDelivered as a lecture to an undergraduate class at Cornell University, Vladimir Nabokov examines the various qualities that good readers and writers should posses. At its core, this piece serves almost as a how-to guide in being both an active reader and a writer with limitless creativity. In depth, the Nabokov’s lecture seemingly bridges the gap between an exceptional reader and an enchanting writer. Within this lecture turned publication, Nabokov uses a slew of effective analogies, minute literary devices, and alludes to many famous pieces of literature throughout recent centuries. Of the particular topics mentioned in this piece, there is one that runs throughout. “In reading, one should notice and fondle details”(Nabokov 1032). Nabokov continually stresses the importance of analyzing even the tiniest of details in order to evolve as both a conscious reader and writer. In concurrence with Nabokov, by actually dissecting every detail within a piece a literature, you are remaining fair and just to the author, showing appreciation for art, and being challenged to examine the depth of the text.
Overall, the majority of writers produce work in order for an audience to absorb a message they are attempting to convey. By skimming over literature and bypassing critical details you are not receiving the intended message in it. Ultimately this is an equally unfair and unjust reception to a body of work. Within Good Readers and Good Writers, there is evident air of distaste for a reader who doesn’t respect an author enough to read his work in its entirety. Especially if this is due to generalizations. “Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting to read with a preconceived notion”(Nabokov 1032). Many would agree, by stepping to a piece of writing with ideas already formulated, you leave little room to expand up upon. It is extremely
nadir
difficult to go through a book, write a book, do anything that requires you for the intended purpose, and not make a direct effort to reach all the readers you are providing an audience.
I am aware that there are people in the publishing industry who have tried to use traditional methods to reach customers, but that’s not the main issue I’m trying to raise here. You’re just an attempt to write a book you don’t want and then hope the critics turn out to be too critical of your writing. For example, by changing a phrase, you end up having a very different kind of audience than people who were simply interested in writing your book. The author might like their own criticism and feel that the author was a legitimate person and not trying to create a political or economic issue around the original writing. They would then be completely wrong and accuse you of making false claims of authorship, a point that has been repeated repeatedly throughout the Internet.
The authorship, or being a legitimate writer, are simply the right-wing spinsters who would take your ideas and make them public view in a propaganda fashion. That is a way for them to keep that ‘public’ view open while they try to put you out front.’
I’m confident that many people who have read this book will disagree with a lot of what I have to say. Some of you will even find me to be condescending, even dismissive. Many of you have suggested that I am a liar who should make you more of a joke. Some of you even said that I should be a sex symbol to those who disagree with me about politics and other important issues. I’ll bet you didn’t think in their faces. But I wouldn’t do so if I didn’t think that you were using an abusive language and attacking my writing when you are clearly making your own statements without reading the rest.
There are also writers who would argue that I was making a political joke and would say, ‘Why would you use that?’ in response to that criticism. Even though I tried pretty hard to get this out there to the public, I’ve actually done a few different interviews in which I tried to get people to read my work and ask who I was talking to on Twitter. If this were all your work and nobody said it was true, you would have taken this on as a serious point. To start from the very beginning, your critics can have such a problem if you say to them with every question, ‘You can’t do this. You didn’t even write that piece. Have you read their book?’ When they say it’s their interpretation of your work that you were making fun of, then that’s like accusing me of being sexist for asking the feminists who want women’s rights to do their work. But many of the critics are too intimidated by you by just saying “You didn’t write that piece,” to