Word: nakobov
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Within a month of Lost in the Funhouse's appearance came Nakobov's Congeries, a collection of stories, poems, fragments of novels, and critical essays...
...Nakobov is best when his characters bear the same watermark as himself. Some of his "made-up" characters are good, but they cannot compare to the boy in "First Love," the aging lover in "Spring in Fialta," Pnin, or Humbert Humbert of Lolita, all of whom clearly resemble the author. Lolita, that beautiful and hilarious love story, is still his greatest novel...
Nakogov's Congeries is not a "Complete Nakobov," but it does offer from that tomb-like quality of the Collected Works of Dead Dull Author. There is not much point in printing selections from novels, and the poems are better forgotten. For the reader who knows Nakobov, Congeries is redundant; for the reader who does not, the many paperback editions of Nabokov are a better introduction...
...important thing is that Nakobov is a very great writer. John Barth may be washed up, or at least he has exhausted this particular vein, but Nakobov is now at the height of his powers. One reviewer, in The New York Times, said that his best work is still to come. I have the same feeling, but if he never writes another word, Lolita will be enough
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