Rand is an amusing freak. I think of her almost the way I do
Lillian Hellman, although Hellman was a superior artist, and each would have
hated the other politically. Both were fierce, dogmatic old battle-axes who
brooked no opinion that was not their own, and they are sometimes more fun to
read about than to read.
I have zero use for anything Rand has to say. I
can't imagine holding Rand and Nabokov in equal esteem, but I'm sure many have
enjoyed both at some level. Rand's two major novels can't compare as literary
art, but they're not exactly boring, either -- well, I didn't find them boring
anyway. I thought they were page-turners; I mostly just shrugged off her
philosophy. I also enjoyed Nathanael Branden's memoir about his affair with her;
a masterpiece of unintentional hilarity.
Did Nabokov ever have
anything to say about Rand? Rand's own views on Nabokov, -- which can be
accessed here: http://ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html -- are certainly unique: "I
have read only one book of his and a half -- the half was Lolita, which I
couldn't finish. He is a brilliant stylist, he writes beautifully, but his
subjects, his sense of life, his view of man, are so evil that no amount of
artistic skill can justify them."
Nabokov? Evil? What's that old comment
of Samuel Johnson's -- "no point in wasting criticism on unresisting
imbecility"?