One of my selfish regrets re: PF is that I can never 
again read it for the first time.  I have lost that fresh 
perspective.  I do, however, teach PF every other year, 
and my students almost to a person have not read it prior 
to my class. This presents certain challenges for me, but 
also opportunities. One opportunity might be to investigate 
how the novel works the first time through, as opposed to 
successive re-readings. I'm thinking of breaking up my class
into reading groups where some will read the novel from 
start to finish, some will follow Kinbote's prescription, 
others will start with the poem, etc.  I'm also interested
in the idea of a PF wiki, just for the class.

So, any other ideas out there? Is it better to have students
read the whole novel before beginning class discussion? 

Also, if you were teaching a 12-week Nabokov course, which
texts would you assign?

Thanks in advance,
Matthew Roth

Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB

Contact the Editors

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.

Visit Zembla

View Nabokv-L Policies