Word: nabokovs
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...this time, "The Enchanter" had changed into the complex tale of the love affair between the brooding Humbert Humbert and his spunky nymphet. As Nabokov put it, the original short story "had, in secret, grown the claws and wings of a novel...
...Enchanter, however, never quite gets off the ground. Rediscovered by Nabokov, published posthumously by his son Dmitri who also translated it from the Russian, the story is merely a pale version of the great novel. In the introduction, Nabokov characterizes "The Enchanter" as a separate work. Its premise and plot, however, so resemble those of Lolita that, despite ourselves, we search the story for traits of the novel--the same multifaceted richness of character, the same playful verve of language...
...gold and come up with a few weakly glinting bits. The Enchanter offers us flaccid auxiliary characters and a descriptive style which--although recognizably Nabokov's in its wit and lilt--becomes self-indulgently poetic and sinks into monotony...
...essay, "On a book entitled Lolita," Nabokov explains how the novel represents "my love affair...with the English language." Having left off writing in his mother tongue, Nabokov, speaking through Humbert, toys with the American idiom, pinpoints his images with le mot juste...
...course, as a short novel The Enchanter can not be expected to have the same artistic complexity as Lolita. Despite its shortcomings, there is much to admire in this piece of prose. Nabokov's unmistakable flair comes across clearly in Dmitri Nabokov's sensitive and painstaking translation. When he spoke at Harvard last Thursday, Dmitri mentioned an "inviolable contract" which existed between the father as author and the son as translator, and which continued to exist even after the father's death...