Nabokov on Poshlust →

An interview with Vladimir Nabokov —

“Most of the questions were submitted by Herbert Gold, during a visit to Montreux in September, 1966. … The combined set appeared in The Paris Review of October, 1967.”

“What is most characteristic of poshlust in contemporary writing? Are there temptations for you in the sin of poshlust? Have you ever fallen?

Nabokov: “Poshlust,” or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar cliches, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic and dishonest pseudo-literature — these are obvious examples.

Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. “