where truth lies (4)

"A creative writer must study carefully the works of his
rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn
capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given
world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of
labor, the artist should know the given world.
Imagination without knowledge leads no farther than the back
yard of primitive art, the child's scrawl on the fence, and the
crank's message in the market place. Art is never simple. To
return to my lecturing days: I automatically gave low marks
when a student used the dreadful phrase "sincere and simple"--
"Flaubert writes with a style which is always simple and
sincere"-- under the impression that this was the greatest
compliment payable to prose or poetry. When I struck the phrase
out, which I did with such rage in my pencil that it ripped the
paper, the student complained that this was what teachers had
always taught him: "Art is simple, art is sincere." Someday I
must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in
Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at
its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex."

V. Nabokov, from here.

Russian works:Mashen'ka (1926; Mary, 1970), Korol', dama, valet (1928; King, Queen, Knave, 1968), Zashchita (1930; The Defense, 1964), Podvig (1933; Glory, 1972), and Camera obscura (1933; revised and translated as Laughter in the Dark, 1938). Other Russian works were Otchayaniye (1936; Despair, 1937), Dar (1937; The Gift, 1963), and Priglashenie na kazn (1938; Invitation to a Beheading, 1959).
English Works: Lolita, Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957, Pale Fire (1962), Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969), Transparent Things (1972), Look at the Harlequins! (1974), Nabokov's Dozen (1958), Tyrants Destroyed (1975), and The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1995), Poems and Problems (1959).