Nabokovism

Nabokovism

English

Etymology

Nabokov +‎ -ism

Noun

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 […]