Word: nabokovs
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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
After Tolstoy, Nabokov serves up a pleasant dessert of Chekhov. Chekhov occupies a distant but secure third place in the official ranking. He is neither poetic nor playful, but his wisdom and good taste capture Nabokov's heart. The survey ends with a small but appetite-killing dose of Gorki. Except for a couple of untranslatable modernists (Blok and Bely), Nabokov says, the future of Russian literature lies with the expatriates...
...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