How did critics respond to Vladimir Nabokov’s aloof and highly stylized writing style?

Critics responded to Vladimir Nabokov’s highly stylized and aloof writing with a range of reactions that often depended on their own literary and social perspectives:

• Accusations of Snobbery: As his reputation grew in the 1930s, detractors frequently interpreted his idiosyncratic, detached style and unusual novelistic concerns as a form of snobbery. This perception persisted in some circles, with critics of strong social convictions in the West holding him in low esteem, and the Soviet Union citing his "literary snobbism" as a reason for not publishing his work until 1986.1
• Defense of His Approach: Conversely, his prominent Russian critic, Vladislav Khodasevich, argued that Nabokov’s aristocratic perspective was entirely appropriate for his subject matter, which focused on problems of art masked by allegory.1
• Critical Acclaim: Within the intellectual émigré community in Paris and Berlin, Nabokov was highly regarded as one of the most significant artists in contemporary literature. By the 1970s, his reputation had mounted to the point where a leading literary critic acclaimed him as "king over that battered mass society called contemporary fiction".1