Word: nabokov
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...take on the male animal in her first form-fitted dress. "Lolita," she says, "was born decades later, yet [she was] a twin of the thirteen-and-a-half-year-old striding through Crotona Park, passing the spiky red flowers toward a kingdom of mesmerized men." The reference to Nabokov's lollipop avenger is especially suggestive because Simon's book is reminiscent of the Russian master's own recollections of childhood, Speak, Memory. Both books play magic tricks on time; both end with a voyage about to begin; and both leave the reader anxious to sign...
NONFICTION: After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, James Davidson and Mark Lytle ∙ Happy to Be Here, Garrison Keillor Lectures on Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov ∙ Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor, Diana Trilling ∙ Scenes of Childhood, Sylvia Townsend Warner
...final essay of the volume, "On Translation," reveals Nabokov's understanding of the art he describes. Indeed, he has written in two languages, he has translated the works of others, he has translated his own works, and he has seen his own works translated by others. Even in this essay, however, Nabokov exudes a conceited pedantry, inventing some silly translations of names and titles. Gogol's story "The Overcoat," for example, becomes "The Carrick." Memoirs from a Mousehold, rather than Notes from Underground. And the nickname of Prince Stepan Rkadyevich Oblonsky. One cannot help but wonder whether Nabokov is more...
...easier to criticize Nabokov's lectures on literature than his novels. His fiction is complex and elusive, sometimes maddeningly obscure. The prose is lush and polychromatic, the plots ingenious. He fashions the most exquisite narrative structures out of the most fragile allusions and symbolic patterns, and ices it all with an arch sense of humor. His late works, such as Ada, hint at layers of meaning that will keep scholars guessing for decades. His works will probably last: Lolita is already available in an annotated critical edition. Still, there is something missing in all of Nabokov's work. His starchy...
NONFICTION: Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, V.S. Naipaul ∙ The Confidence Man in American Literature, Gary Lindberg ∙ The Graves of Academe, Richard Mitchell ∙ The Language of Clothes, Alison Lurie ∙ Lectures on Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov ∙ Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor, Diana Trilling