Thus far I've read all but maybe 2 or 3 of Nabokov's novels. This is the first one that I've quit reading.The first half is OK. There's actually a story. Then, suddenly, without warning, you're thrust into (I'm guessing) the main character's work about some Russian writer, who may or may not be an actual writer for all I know. From about the half-way mark, to where I quit (about page 240 out of 300+), it's all literary/poetry criticism, references to countless Russian authors, various philosophers, etc. It's like a boring dream where you drag on and on from boring meaningless sequence to boring meaningless sequence, always wondering if it's the narrative of the main character's book, or Nabakov. This was just too much.It might be fine if you're a Russian literary historian, but for regular folks, I just can't recommend this one. I gave it 2 stars because it's Nabokov, but only for those precious few good sequences in the first half of the book.