Tag archives for V.Nabokov - Page 2
Ada, or Ardor. New York, 1969
Nabokov once referred to Ada as his "most cosmopolitan and poetic novel." Simultaneously a family epic of the Russian aristocracy, a literary history of Russia, and a meditation on the…
The Second Time Through
This is my suggestion about reading Lolita - the first time, delve into it without the benefit of annotations. Read an edition other than Appels, or - if youre a…
Priglashenie na kazn. Paris, 1938 (Invitation to a Beheading, 1959)
Nabokov wrote this anti-totalitarian novel in "a burst of spontaneous generation," composing the first draft in Berlin during a short hiatus from his major Russian novel, Dar , during the…
Poems and Problems. New York, 1970
Poems and Problems includes thirty-nine of Nabokov's Russian poems with English translations printed on facing pages at his insistence; fourteen English poems, all of which had appeared in Doubleday's 1959…
Annotated version helps a lot
It is actually possible to read the story and make sense out of it without reference to any of the annotations, but almost any reader will be keenly aware of…
Dar. New York, 1952 (The Gift, 1963)
Nabokov's Russian masterwork tells the story of "a great writer in the making." It contains a good deal of autobiographical material, including the seemingly preordained courtship and marriage of the…
Strong Opinions. New York, 1973
This assortment of twenty-two "interviews," eleven letters, nine articles, and five lepidopteral papers covers Nabokov's views on every facet of his multiple careers. As a result of his stringent rules…
A masterpiece of subtle literary meaning
Nabokov has crafted here a work so brilliant it deserves to be put side by side with all the classics of western literary tradition. He towers above the rest with…
New Directions
In the fall of 1938, Nabokov's financial resources were depleted. He solicited a grant from the Russian Literary Fund in the United States, claiming: "My material situation has never been…
Transparent Things. New York, 1972
This novella, a National Book Award nominee, was published separately after first appearing in the December 1971 issue of Esquire. Reviewers scarcely knew what to make of this deceptively slim…
Nabokov by Peter Shaw
In response to Nabokov's Way (November 3, 1966) To the Editors: Enright seems to think that he has discovered the perversity in Lolita, for he speaks of the (let's face…
Bend Sinister. New York, 1947
The first novel he composed in the United States, Bend Sinister is Nabokov's most overtly anti-fascist, anti-communist novel. He had envisioned it as early as 1942 under the title "The…
Look at the Harlequins! New York, 1974
Still largely overlooked in critical circles, Look at the Harlequins! recounts the autobiography of Vadim Vadimych N., whose life and work seem to parody the biography a wayward scholar might…
Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff is a one of the best books that I have ever read. It was written in 1999 and received a Pullitzer prize and,…
Russian Stories
By 1939, Nabokov had changed his language of composition permanently to English, although he still indulged in occasional Russian poetry and frequent translations, and had amassed nearly fifty Russian stories.…
Reading Nabokov by Brian Boyd, Reply by Robert M. Adams
In response to The Wizard of Lake Cayuga (January 30, 1992) To the Editors: Robert Adams reviews the biographical side of my Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years with great sympathy…
Reading Nabokov, James, Austen, Fitzgerald
Azar Nafisi's memoir once again demonstrates the power of ideas in literature in an oppressive regime (think "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seanstress"). Nafisi is a western educated professor of…
American Stories
In sheer volume, Nabokov's American stories were dwarfed by his Russian output. Between the completion of his first novel in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, in 1939, and…
Nabokov carried tradition of gentleman naturalist into mid-century
Although writer Vladimir Nabokov often used a hand lens for his taxonomic study of butterflies, historian Daniel Alexandrov may be the first to treat Nabokov himself as a "lens," specifically…
Lolita. Paris, 1955
In 1953, having nearly completed this "enormous, mysterious, heartbreaking novel" after "five years of monstrous misgivings and diabolical labors," Nabokov declared that it "has had no precedent in literature." He…