I had a wonderful reaction to this essay. I found it refreshing and vivid and most importantly, interesting. I think that because I liked it so much, I had an emotional reaction to Good Readers and Good Writers. Nabokov showed me in this essay that not all essays and lectures have to be boring. They can be just as interesting as a story and they can have as much detail as a fictional novel. He really made me appreciate essays and pay attention to the words and the story they were trying to tell. Nabokov made me imagine that I was in the room while he was lecturing, which Why Read the Classics? did not make me imagine.
I really enjoyed this essay and his writing. I really believe I enjoyed it so much because it wasn't dull. I don't have the patience to sit through reading a boring book or essay about one topic or another. Nabokov put just enough detail in his essay to make me imagine being there, but not enough to overwhelm me with extra things that have no purpose. I think Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi was the most detailed book I have read thusfar, and I disliked it immensly. Too much detail can be a bad thing like that novel shows. I appreciate Vladimir Nabokov because he made his essay interesting, but not too detailed.
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Good Readers and Good Writers." Lecture
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