So far in the Brexit debate, a range of figures — from David Cameron to David Icke — have chipped in to offer their two cents’ worth. However, no-one was expecting the latest literary figure to enter the discussion.
In this week’s TLS, a talk by the late Vladimir Nabokov — given in 1926 — has been translated into English for the first time. In the talk — titled ‘On Generalities — the Lolita novelist discusses Europe. Nabokov appears to struggle with the concept of Europe — concluding that when people utter the word ‘Europe’ with ‘metaphorical, generalizing intonation’, he sees ‘precisely nothing’:
‘That is how history is treated. But I repeat, it is a hundred times more terrifying when the demon of generalities worms his way into our judgments about our own era.
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