Strong opinions

What Hacker News says

1. ogurechnyJul 2025
   You don't really need a critic to see that it has spread everywhere. People not just adore, they demand to be given a three paragraph summary and a moral of the story for everything, no matter which era, which genre, or how much magnificent embroidery was presented to them. So-called Web 2.0 review platforms have succumbed under the weight of people complaining about not being given clear instructions by the authors, and people trying to invent those clear instructions on “understanding” the work themselves. It seems that the simple truth that the whole point of work of art is how it starts processes in your very own head is a secret which is well hidden from those who expect that others can do thinking in their stead, and just state the “results”.

   Of course, from that perspective, modern society hasn't changed much for centuries, they just had different excuses back in the days. However, it doesn't happen by itself; the construct of the presumed movie-goer (or reader, or listener) affects the public. When author has high expectations of a recipient, many of them can find themselves growing to that level, when the lowest common denominator is targeted, everyone's average drops. Writing by committee and directing by committee inevitably results in watching by committee, when no one cares because there is enough ways to find out which opinion you “should” have about the movie, and the only thing left is to check the box for visiting the cinema (the obvious democratisation of an old cliche of rich nobles being bored at the opera).

   A lot of auxiliary apologetic nonsense is written about “pop culture” today — its “consumers” need to be told how to look at themselves. A vaccine against that would be finding something so bright and delicate that it can't be stuffed into one of predefined expected reactions. A lot of much stronger criticism have already been written, too. One might point to such “hits” as Vladimir Nabokov's “Strong Opinions” and lectures on literature, although the suit of renowned writer and lecturer was perhaps a bit too bronzy, while in reviews read by a small circle of Russian-speaking emigrants in Europe (collected in “Think, Write, Speak...”) or in satirical passages in fictional works he was a bit more open.

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2. gregjorApr 2022
   If you are driven or held back by what strangers think about your work, or — worse — what you imagine people might think or comment, you aren’t producing honest work. You are performing.

   No matter what you do, no matter how relevant or perfect you think it is, someone will find fault. It’s up to you to interpret criticism as constructive or not. You can’t expect other people to know what may offend you or cause you to doubt yourself.

   All criticism, and all praise, you get may have value. If someone’s comments make you think about your work then the comments have value. Everything else you can ignore. If you feel defensive or hurt, or flattered, your focus has moved from your work to your ego.

   Nabokov, a writer who didn’t give a toss about his critics, wrote something worth keeping in mind:

   I don’t think that an artist should bother about his audience. His best audience is the person he sees in his shaving mirror every morning. I think that the audience an artist imagines, when he imagines that kind of a thing, is a room filled with people wearing his own mask.

   You asked for books that might help. I’m not sure what your project involves, but I can suggest a few that I have enjoyed.

   How to Write a Thesis and Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco.

   Strong Opinions by Vladimir Nabokov.

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3. ahalbert4May 2025
   Vladimir Nabokov's opinions on various writers, culled from Strong Opinions. (http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations)

   * James, Henry. Dislike him rather intensely, but now and then his wording causes a kind of electric tingle. Certainly not a genius.

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4. leephillipsFeb 2018
   On the other hand:

   In an interview (maybe reproduced in Strong Opinions?), Nabokov explains his theory that the origins of dreams are the visual patterns produced by the eye in darkness and interpreted by the sleeping brain.

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5. vgmMar 2012
   The following was a real eye-opener for me, as I always thought from someone's speech, you could infer how much mental horsepower they had [1]:

   "

   "Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle," confessed Vladimir Nabokov in 1962. He took up the point more personally in his foreword to Strong Opinions (1973): "I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand … My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French.

   "At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts … nobody should ask me to submit to an interview … It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance."

   We sympathise. And most literary types, probably, would hope for inclusion somewhere or other on Nabokov's sliding scale: "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

   "

   [1] Foreword, The Quotable Hitchens.

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