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 […]