I made a mistake. I wrote Montesquieu instead of Montaigne.
It is corrected in the re-forwarded message below.
 
----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 1:47 PM
Subject: [Query] Homage to Pushkin and Nabokov

Dear List,
 
I was intrigued by a quote by VN, on Montaigne, Pushkin and Cicero ( kindly forwarded to me by Matt Roth) in his commentary about Apuleius: 
"This once-famous romance, dealing with the narrator's adventures when he is transformed into a donkey, contains
some brilliant erotic images, but, on the whole, strikes the reader of today as even more boring than Cicero seemed to Pushkin in 1815--or to Montaigne
in 1580" 
 
I was wondering if VN was seriously disparaging Cicero and Apuleius, as this quote seems to imply.  Information and opinions are invited!
 
While I was using Google-tools I came across an article and I wonder if it has already been mentioned as a VN sighting ( its date online is 2002, it was written in 1999): 
17 Dec 2002 
Russian Review
Volume 58 Issue 4 Page 535-547, October 1999
To cite this article: Julie W Sherbinin (1999)
Pushkin's "Flying Creations": Fowl Play in Evgenii Onegin
Russian Review 58 (4), 535–547.

doi:10.1111/0036-0341.00091
Abstract
The Russian Review Pays Irreverent Homage to Pushkin and Nabokov
Pushkin's "Flying Creations": Fowl Play in Evgenii Onegin
Julie W. Sherbinin

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