Vladimir Nabokov is arguably one of the greatest writers in modern history with two of his novels ranking on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/) He is most well known for his novel Lolita. Nabokov believes that a good reader has imagination, memory, a dictionary and artistic sense as he describes in this excerpt. I agree with him in this case. He talks about focusing even on the little things. You have to use your imagination to build the picture of the environment and characters in your head. The details that seem trivial are important for this reason. Memory is also very important because you need to remember as much as possible about the book to get the most out of it. I know it may seem silly to some but having a dictionary is a very important part of being a good reader. When I was younger I always had to stop what I was reading and look the hard words up in the dictionary. It used to make me embarrassed because I thought people would think I was stupid but, it really helped me understand the content of what I was reading a lot more and it also widened my vocabulary so I am very thankful that I took the time to do that and I still come across words that I have to look up every now and again.
I do try to use all the traits he pointed out that are supposed to make you a good reader. I like to think of myself as a good reader. I can’t think of anything that would make a better reader than the characteristics described by Nabokov. I really enjoy reading and this excerpt has given some good advice that I will do my best to use when I read in the future.
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