How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
In the place where my current tutor sits, there is a changeful image, a succession of fade-ins and fade-outs; the pulsation of my thought mingles with that of the leaf shadows and turns Ordo into Max and Max into Lenski and Lenski into the schoolmaster, and the whole array of trembling transformations is repeated. (8.5.1)
In the description of this transformation, Nabokov seems to be saying that it almost didn't matter who his tutor was, as long as he was being tutored. But given how vivid the characterizations of some of the tutors,(particularly of Mademoiselle and Lenski), it seems insincere. Does this feel like the case to you? Why might Nabokov say this?
Quote #8
One winter night, being behind with a set task and preferring pneumonia to ridicule at the blackboard, he exposed himself to the polar frost, with the hope of a timely sickness, by sitting in nothing but his nightshirt at the open window (it gave on the Palace Square and its moon-polished pillar); on the morrow he still enjoyed perfect health, and, undeservedly, it was the dreaded teacher who happened to be laid up. (9.1.2)
Vladimir may have been a bum of a student, but his father was incredibly driven. Worried that he wasn't prepared, he tried to get himself sick rather than go in the next day and fail. While Vladimir's father was rebellious, deciding early on not to work for the Tsar, Vladimir had no similar need to rebel. Is the lack of rebellion in part to blame for Vladimir's less-than-desirable studentship?
Quote #9
The story of my college years in England is really the story of my trying to become a Russian writer. I had the feeling that Cambridge...existed merely to frame and support my rich nostalgia. (13.2.3)
Cambridge University continues to be one of the most well respected educational institutions in the world. So this quote says a lot about the emotional and intellectual impact of exile on a person. Instead of being "merely" a student, Vladimir feels a responsibility to earn back the identity and connection to his past he lost when leaving St. Petersburg.