Nabokov's "Good Readers and Good Writers" Tone

As I read "Good Readers and Good Writers", I understood what tone the author, Vladimir Nabokov was. Informative and encouraging would be the two different tones he used. Unlike Italo Calvino, Nabokov is not straightforward and gets right to the point. Instead he is very easygoing and is loosely written. Nabokov informs us about a couple of different people and part of the stories including Jane Austen and Madame Bovary. Like I said before the essay does not seem to have a main point or theme to it until you have finished reading the essay. The main point is to have a balance between the author and reader. For the encouraging part of his tone, he specifies to keep our minds open to reading books. "The effort to begin a book, especially if it is praised by people whom the young reader secretly deems to be too old-fashioned or too serious, this effort is often difficult to make; but once it is made, rewards are various and abundant." (Nabokov) He is telling us that when older people recommend books to younger people, they tend to not want to read them because they think the books will be "old-fashioned" and boring. They have to keep an open mind because who knows they might really like the book in the end!

Nabokov, Vladimir. "Good Readers and Good Writers." Lecture