Abstract

Gene H. Bell-Villada argues that despite major differences in aesthetic, Nabokov and Rand share ideological attitudes resulting from their Russian émigré pasts. Both rejected "social" criteria for judgment and set out to build counter-models to socially oriented values. In their respective spheres, both were absolute purists, and as harsh and uncompromising as the Soviets they despised. Bell-Villada discusses his own relationship to Nabokov and Rand. "Hooked" on Nabokov in the 1960s, he later turned against and seriously criticized him. And, in reaction to America's formulaic individualism, he satirizes Rand in his own published stories