There are, as one would expect, many dazzling moments in [Lectures on Literature], but the most striking point about them is the industry that went into their making. It would be painful to think of this erudite, debonair man carefully transcribing the lyrics of "The Croppy Boy," an 18th-century Irish ballad, into his teaching copy of Ulysses merely to quote a few lines in class if his enjoyment of such tasks were not evident on every page. Nabokov addressed his students with utmost dignity, skimping on none of his insight or passion, or even the dubious jokes inspired by a mind that delighted in play….

Nabokov has decided prejudices in favor of the notion of art as flagrant creation rather than slavish imitation of reality, and airs them so often that they take on axiomatic weight: "Literature is invention." "Finally, and above all, a great writer is always...