Joseph Aisenberg: "...For Nabokov's strained relationship to him you should read Boyd's Vladimir Nabokov, The Russian Years...The lines you quote, which have been called a tribute, of course aren't really much of a tribute. Nabokov is saying that he had always, correctly had a feeling of contempt for his brother (because Nabokov disdained homosexuality)...This sentence ["It is one of those lives that hopelessly claim a belated something... ] I've always thought, was rather unsettling and ugly, as were the words written to Wilson you quote. Nabokov simply could not transcend his bigoted feelings about his brother's sexuality and so his tributes are cutting and condescending at the same time as they try to express regret..."