EDITOR's NOTE. NABOKV-L once again thanks Mr. Iannarelli.

Iann88@aol.com wrote:

This from Edmund White in Gay Fiction Speaks:Conversations with Gay
Novelists:

"Nabokov recommended that a writer not use any dialogue in the first thirty
or forty pages of a novel. He thought it very important that the writer
impose his own tone of voice and point of view before handing it over to all
these characters, who necessarily would talk in a realistic--that
is,banal--way."

Phillip Iannarelli
Cleveland, Ohio

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EDITOR's NOTE. I suspect this is Edmund White's projection. It is true that VN did not much like dialogue. As an aside, I would remark that dialogue quickly "dates" a novel.