Archives for V.Nabokov
Zashchita Luzhina. Berlin, 1930 (The Defense, 1964)
Sogliadatai. Paris, 1930 (The Eye, 1965) Zashchita Luzhina , the novel Nabokov later described as the "story of a chess player who was crushed by his genius," was his first…
Pale Fire. New York, 1962
Nabokov called Pale Fire's form "specifically, if not generically, new." "Generically," perhaps, it is his answer to the verse novel exemplified by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Specifically, it is centered on…
Podvig. Paris, 1932 (Glory, 1971)
The serialization of Podvig began in Sovremennye zapiski in February 1931, and parts of it appeared in two other Parisian reviews, Poslednie novosti and Rossiia I Slavianstvo, as well as…
Eugene Onegin. New York, 1964
In a 1937 lecture delivered in Paris on the centennial of Pushkin's death, Nabokov claimed that reading Pushkin was "without a single exception . . . one of the glories…
Kamera obskura. Berlin, 1933 (Laughter in the Dark, 1938)
Nabokov developed Kamera obskura from the sketch of his earlier, unpublished story Bird of Paradise. It was serialized in Sovremennye zapiski from May 1932 to May 1933, and was excerpted…
The Nabokov-Wilson Correspondence
Nabokov's relationship with Edmund Wilson was the most public of the close friendships of his American career. In the introduction to his edition of 264 letters exchanged by the pair…
Otchaianie. Berlin, 1936 (Despair, 1966)
Nabokov visited Paris in October 1936 for his first reading there, and to assess the feasibility of moving from Berlin. A public triumph, the reading included the first two chapters…
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…