Marvelous name, by the way. You raise a
very interesting subject, and one dear to my heart. Can Nabokov be approached in
a scholarly way? Well, yes, obviously he can and he is. Is this the way he
should have liked to be approached? I have very serious doubts on the
subject.
The reason most of us do turn to the academics for help, is that
we have not been raised with Nabokov's cultural background, which he to a
certain extent assumes his readers share. Many of us are willing to play catch
up, just in order to be able to read his novels. As I read Ada I also read
Chateaubriand and Baudelaire, since they are not in my cultural
bagage.
My advice to you would be simply to drop Nabokov as an
academic subject. Read as much as you can in Russian and French
literature, and get as good an acquaintance as you can with Italian, German,
Dutch and Scandanavian languages and literatures. A smattering of Greek and
Latin will not be amiss, but do not study Nabokov -- a poisonous idea, if
you ask me.
Read Nabokov as he wished to be read, purely for the
pleasure.