Word: nabokov
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Even by the standards of genius, Vladimir Nabokov's work habits were odd. He wrote much of Lolita in the backseat of the family car, a black 1946 Oldsmobile. (He said it was the only spot in America where he wasn't plagued by noise and drafts.) He didn't use regular paper. Instead he wrote in pencil on index cards, which his wife Vera later typed...
More than that, however, the novel remains plot-oriented; words are at the service of furthering the plot and not artistry. Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that a major writer is simultaneously a storyteller, teacher, and enchanter, and though Auster has the first two mastered— Auster can weave intricate tales that span decades and miles—he is only halfway to enchantment in “Invisible.” His fascinating dance between past and present helps him approach this ideal, but “Invisible” has no moments of literary magic...
...Pamuk avoids claustrophobia by elevating his repetitions into a self-referential body of work as complex as that of Nabokov, Barth, or Bolaño. Just as with those writers, the relationship between author and fiction remains intriguingly fluid. Many of Pamuk’s fictional landmarks are recognizable from his non-fiction memoir; Kemal even meets a character named Orhan Pamuk at his engagement party...
...Vladimir Nabokov once commented that “reality” was one of the few words in the English language that is meaningless without quotation marks. Reality TV gives this observation a whole new meaning—one that makes me wonder whether those who wish to follow in the footsteps of Britain’s newest talent would be better off had she, too, been a fairytale...
...noir-by-the-numbers. They laugh at the absurdity of a noir parody being published in 2009. And even laughing is a stretch.Could Johnson possibly be serious? Was the “Playboy” serialization meant to invoke the memory of past contributors such as Bradbury or Nabokov? Was Johnson pressured to publish a stand-alone edition? It’s not for us to infer, and it doesn’t seem likely, but for all its timidity, “Nobody Move” is best read as any other story. Sympathy falls typically, but genuinely...