Nabokovism

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English

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Etymology

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From Nabokov +‎ -ism.

Noun

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Nabokovism (countable and uncountable, plural Nabokovisms)

  1. An attitude or turn of phrase characteristic of the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977).
    • 1966, Maurice Schneps, Alvin D. Coox, The Japanese image, Volume 1:
      They are rather little signs to suggest how one might proceed up a road on which I did not do very well myself, the road to pure Nabokovism.
    • 1974, Carl R. Proffer, A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov:
      We both said, well then, let's put together some of the Nabokovisms we've been guffawing ecstatically over behind our hand on this magical white night.
    • 1979, The Spectator (volume 243, part 2)
      [] Nabokovisms, such as his description of cheerful Soviet propaganda as 'this pail of milk of human kindness with a dead rat at the bottom'.
    • 1996, Natasha Perova, Captives and latest Booker winners:
      [] an irresponsible and profligate imitator (like many of the forty long-listed authors, who seem to be victims of the current epidemics of Nabokovism []