SOURCE: “On the Dark Side of Aesthetic Bliss: Nabokov's Humanism,” in Nabokov and the Novel, Harvard University Press, 1980, pp. 158-71.

In the following essay, Pifer argues that frequent critical charges that Nabokov's novels represent the work of an aesthetic disposition devoid of human concern misrepresent the writer and his work.

The shadows cast in Ada's “dark paradise” may begin, somewhat paradoxically, to clarify Nabokov's frequently misconstrued attitudes toward art and the artist. Certainly he grants to his talented narrator, Van Veen, the status of artist; Van raptly experiences states of “aesthetic bliss” and renders them in a verbal medium with all the power and originality of literary genius. At the same time that Van gives impressive form to his imagination and memory, however, Nabokov deliberately conveys the inadequacies of his character's moral vision. Van's powers as an artist and a lover neither affirm nor imply profound wisdom...