Lolita: A Screenplay

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780679772552
• Notes: BUY WITH Boldness, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and waiting to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Environment: New

Description

Originally written in 1955, this comic satire of sex and the American ways of life focuses on the love of a middle-aged European for an American nymphet. It was made into a Stanley Kubrick film in 1962, starring Peter Sellers, James Mason and Sue Lyon.

---

Despite its lascivious reputation, the pleasures of Lolita are as much intellectual as erogenous. It is a love story with the power to raise both chuckles and eyebrows. Humbert Humbert is a European intellectual adrift in America, haunted by memories of a lost adolescent love. When he meets his ideal nymphet in the shape of 12-year-old Dolores Haze, he constructs an elaborate plot to seduce her, but first he must get rid of her mother. In spite of his diabolical wit, reality proves to be more slippery than Humbert's feverish fantasies, and Lolita refuses to conform to his image of the perfect lover.

Playfully perverse in form as well as content, riddled with puns and literary allusions, Nabokov's 1955 novel is a hymn to the Russian-born author's delight in his adopted language. Indeed, readers who want to probe all of its allusive nooks and crannies will need to consult the annotated edition. Lolita is undoubtedly, brazenly erotic, but the eroticism springs less from the "frail honey-hued shoulders ... the silky supple bare back" of little Lo than it does from the wantonly gorgeous prose that Humbert uses to recount his forbidden passion:

She was musical and apple-sweet ... Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice ... and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and to improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty--between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock.

Much has been made of Lolita as metaphor, perhaps because the love affair at its heart is so troubling. Humbert represents the formal, educated Old World of Europe, while Lolita is America: ripening, beautiful, but not too bright and a little vulgar. Nabokov delights in exploring the intercourse between these cultures, and the passages where Humbert describes the suburbs and strip malls and motels of postwar America are filled with both attraction and repulsion, "those restaurants where the holy spirit of Huncan Dines had descended upon the cute paper napkins and cottage-cheese-crested salads." Yet however tempting the novel's symbolism may be, its chief delight--and power--lies in the character of Humbert Humbert. He, at least as he tells it, is no seedy skulker, no twisted destroyer of innocence. Instead, Nabokov's celebrated mouthpiece is erudite and witty, even at his most depraved. Humbert can't help it--linguistic jouissance is as important to him as the satisfaction of his arrested libido. --Simon Leake

---

Customer Reviews

excellent book
One of the best books I've ever read. Excellent on so many levels. Highly recommended.

2010-06-11 (New Orleans, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Review of AUDIO version - Jeremy Irons is amazing!
It appears that most of the reviewers here are reviewing the book itself (and there are some excellent and very helpful reviews). But I feel I must speak specifically to the audio version and Jeremy Irons's reading of this classic. It is incredible. If there were an award for people who read books on CD, he would win hands down. Perhaps it's that he played the role of Humbert in the most recent movie version. Perhaps it's his long, distinguished acting career. Perhaps he's just an excellent reader. Whatever the reason, he does an amazing job. Inflection, tone, pacing, accents (American and French) are perfect. He dramatizes to some extent, but in such a way that only enhances the story and does not distract you from the beauty of Nabokov's language. Whether you've read "Lolita" or not, treat yourself to this wonderful recording. (As a side note, the Foreword is read by someone else. It's awful, but doesn't last long. Steel yourself, and know that your reward is coming once Jeremy Irons start to read.)

2010-05-07 (Charlotte, NC) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Extrodinary first half - disappointing second half
I've been chipping away at 20th century classic novels for a few years now and have read most of the most acclaimed novels of the past century (although I have yet to tackle Ulysses for obvious reasons). Lolita was one that I admittedly avoided for quite some time, primarily because of its subject matter. Did I really want to read a novel about a middle aged man who has a sexual relationship with a pubescent child? But still, Lolita, by all accounts, is one of the most revered novels of the past century - and so, I finally relented and read it.

And I have to say - the first half of this novel is extraordinary. Half way through Lolita, I was convinced that it was going to be one of the best novels I'd ever read. Unfortunately, the novel loses its way in the second half. I think that a big part of the problem lies in Humbert's obsession. Unfortunately, anyone who is obsessed with anything will inevitably bore those around them about it. It's just the nature of obsession. It's such an all-consuming state of being that it can't help but become tiresome for anyone else to hear about over and over again. In the first part of the novel, Humbert's obsession is new and while distasteful to the reader, compelling. By the second half of the novel, Humbert's ramblings about how captivated he is under Lolita's spell gets a little old.

Another flaw with the second half of the novel is the relative lack of plot development. In the first half of the novel we learn about Humbert's past, his early awareness of his sexual preferences, how he came to America, and his developing obsession for Lolita. The story moves along quickly as Humbert manipulates and then marries Lolita's mother, how she then discovers what he is, and then her sudden death. The second half of the novel becomes something of a dreary travel log, as Humbert and Lolita spend much of the latter part of the novel travelling across the United States, nearly getting caught in compromising situations and visiting kitschy tourist sites.

Not a lot actually happens in this part of the novel although there is a change in the dynamics of the relationship between Humbert and Lolita. Humbert remains deluded in his obsession for the young girl, convinced that their dysfunctional abusive relationship is actually a great love affair, or at least in time will become one. After their first cross country trip, Lolita learns to manipulate Humbert and gradually gains the upper hand in their relationship, while remaining trapped in its cycle of abuse. Humbert's obsession becomes amplified with paranoia and jealousy that gives it a desperation that manages to be both unpleasant and tiresome to read. And this too drags the second half of the novel down.

On a positive note, Lolita is an extraordinary well written novel (with its deliberately pretentious prose). Humbert is an arrogant and manipulative protagonist. His efforts to rationalize his destructive behavior are deplorable, and yet (for the first half of the novel at least) he manages to be an engaging narrator. His sardonic wit is often very funny and the reader can't help but admire the poetry of his prose.

Readers concerned about the content of the novel should note that while the subject matter will (and rightfully should) make most readers uncomfortable (or worse), the novel doesn't celebrate pedophilia, nor does it try to normalize it. Yes, Humbert's actions are deplorable and he ruins the life of a young girl for his own selfish needs, all the while rationalizing his behavior, but there is no shortage of novels that feature similar criminal acts. It's no reason to shy away from this novel which, while a disappointment in the end, remains an exceptional literary achievement.

5 stars for the first half. 3 stars for the second half.

2010-05-05 (Quesnel, BC, Canada) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

---

seductive and mesmerizing
I read it many years ago but decided to read it again, this time, with much more attention to the art of his writing. I must say that it was a rather labor intensive reading experience--I checked English translations of French sentences, looked up Greek, Hebrew, Roman mythology/poets etc, and needed to consult English dictionary frequently--but it was completely worth it. The art and game of Nabakov's language is so seductive, it was disturbing to catch myself mesmerized by its literary beauty on such grotesque subject. I always thought reading one of the most intimate activities but this book really felt as if I am inside of the mind of Humbert, watching through his eyes, but everything in vivid colors and in slow motion, emotions dissected layer by layer, also finding intricate and often absurd humor in it. This book is absolutely original!

2010-04-30 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Lolita - brief review
Excellent audio book! No wonder it's a classic, and the rendering by Jeremy Irons is wonderful.

2010-04-28 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780679729976
• Prerequisite: New
• Notes: BUY WITH Assurance, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and checking to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

From the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales--eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time--display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination. They range from sprightly fables to bittersweet tales of loss, from claustrophobic exercises in horror to a connoisseur's samplings of the table of human folly. Read as a whole, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov offers and intoxicating draft of the master's genius, his devious wit, and his ability to turn language into an instrument of ecstasy.

---

These stories, written between the early 1920s to the mid-1950s, reveal the fascinating progress of Nabokov's early development as they remind us that we are in the presence of a magnificent original, a genuine master. Edited by his son and translator, Dmitri Nabokov, this volume is a literary event.

---

Customer Reviews

Love Nabokov, HORRIBLE binding.
My book was bound horribly. The glue was dried and squished out of the seams. It wasn't just one copy as I purchased two in two separate orders, one for myself and one for a gift. Go with another version as these new covers are not worth the crappy binding that will come apart within a year.

2010-02-11 | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 1

---

Only after the food of the Gods has been sampled the epicurean is born
This book is incredible. It contains such mastery that honestly after reading it, I can't read anyone else. Everyone pales in comparison. Once you've tasted ambrosia, when you are kicked out of heaven (at page 642), you might, as I certainly have, come to see all other attempts at literature as somewhat incomplete, lacking, and even tasteless. Only after the food of the Gods has been sampled the epicurean is born. Dimitri's translation is just as good, with nuances you will never find anywhere in the English language. Ho-Ho.

2008-08-19 | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

---

Gold Standard for Short Stories
Put simply, this collection of short stories is a contemporary gold standard for the form. Nabokov's stories are packed with sparkling surprises, playful artifices and languid, confident language. I've put together a 50+ year reading vita and I find myself drawn back to these stories like a moth to flame...

2007-01-04 | Peqoudian (North Platte, NE USA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

---

There's nothing like a good Nabokov story
Started out reading this book little by little in order to digest each story in full, but then began reading one story after another with seemingly no intermission in between. Both ways suited me fine. In fact, sometimes it doesn't really help to think all that long about some of his stories--they are are like simple chance meetings w/ strangers, while other stories of his spawn dramatic lifetime relationships and require, even demand your utmost attention.

Everytime I stray from reading Nabokov I always come back to his books and think, "Wow, he is such an amazing writer!". I can't say enough about his detailed descriptions, his amazing perspectives, and his uncannily large English vocabulary. He never ceases to amaze me.

2006-11-15 | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

---

Wondrous
Although I had read various Nabokov stories over the years I had never done so in a comprehensive manner, and finally decided to do so. I anticipated that this would be a wonderful read, and of course, I was right.

I was well aware as to how gifted Nabokov is with the language; what surprised me is his versatility. It seems like there is nothing he can't do. Contained in this collection is every kind of character imaginable: rich, poor, simple, smart; there is even an entirely credible portrait of a Siamese twin. There is straight drama, fantasy, adventure, horror and intrigue. There are all the elements of what our English teachers told us make good writing: symbolism, allegory, descriptive power, observation, wit, cleverness, heart, and an enormous store of knowledge, performed in a style that can only be described as poetic. And woven through it are the themes that make up the web of humanity: beauty, truth, and love. It is an utterly splendid collection, as good a collection of short stories as any I have ever read.

One of the things that sets him apart is restraint, or perhaps subtlety is a better word. In, "The Reunion," for example, two brothers meet after not seeing each other for ten years. One escaped the Soviet Union and is living a poor, almost wretched existence in Berlin. His brother stayed, and was able to achieve some success as a Soviet functionary. They finally meet each other in the Berliner's shabby apartment. Most authors would not be able to resist the urge to let this to sink into melodrama. There would be arguments, tears, and recriminations. But not for Nabokov. In his story the brothers simply find that they are uncomfortable with one another, and when they go their separate ways the seeming lack of drama beforehand makes their parting all the more poignant.

Humor and sadness are evident in all of this collection, sometimes in succeeding stories, sometimes in succeeding pages. "A Bad Day," is the touching and amusing story of a little boy's visit to his cousins in the Russian countryside, a visit he dreads because he doesn't get along and because he will be teased. The last line of the story--which in the hands of somebody like Updike would be a devastating condemnation of humanity--is here bittersweet, bringing both a tear to the eye and a smile to the face in self-recognition. It is, after all, nothing more than a "bad day."

But if there is whimsy here there is also great power. In, "Signs and Symbols," an old man and woman make a trip to the sanatorium to visit their deranged adult son on his birthday. Such a simple exercise is made terribly complicated by their age, their lack of means, the unpredictable nature of their son, and the indifference of the hospital staff. Nothing is really resolved by story's end; we are simply given an indelible portrait of the difficult, arduous journey that life has been for these uncomplicated, decent people. It is very moving and also an excellent example of Nabokov's worldly or otherworldly knowledge.

Many of the stories here have to do with, as you would expect, Russians and Russian expatriates. ("Write about what you know!" the English teachers say.) Nabokov unfortunately knew about the horrible experience of being exiled from his country, a country that his stories make clear he deeply loved, and to which he never returned. He doesn't spend a lot of time condemning the evil system that drove him and millions like him away, (although he does, briefly, in two of his earlier, weaker stories), he instead concentrates on those that it drove away. There are many excellent examples of this, but perhaps my favorite is entitled, "Cloud, Castle, Lake." In it, an older fellow is taken on a holiday train excursion he tries to get out of, is coerced into taking part in activities he doesn't wish to engage, and told to forsake the simple pleasures he has come to enjoy; all for--he is told--his own good. The train eventually stops at a perfect little inn, which overlooks a perfect lake in which is reflected a lovely cloud and castle. He wants to stay. Of course, he can't. Sad as it is, the story is also very amusing, and, typical of Nabokov at his best, works on several different levels.

The story also contains examples of Nabokov's splendid use of the language at the height of his power. Our friend observes the countryside from his hurtling train: "The badly pressed shadow of the car sped madly along the grassy bank, where flowers blended into colored streaks. A crossing: a cyclist was waiting, resting one foot upon the ground. Trees appeared in groups and singly, revolving coolly and blandly, displaying the latest fashions. The blue dampness of a ravine. A memory of love, disguised as a meadow. Wispy clouds--greyhounds of heaven." How marvelously descriptive this, and so beautiful that one finds oneself emotionally engaged.

The book is loaded with this stuff. You can barely turn a page without some surprise or delight awaiting you. A twenty-eight year old son returns unexpectedly after many years to visit his mother in, "The Doorbell." In the dimly lit room, he is taken aback by the fact that she is clearly preoccupied with something. Suddenly, "like a stupid sun issuing from a stupid cloud, the electric light burst forth from the ceiling." This, by the way, is another great story. In, "Ultima Thule," as a character is walking on the beach, "a wave would arrive, all out of breath, but, as it had nothing to report, it would disperse in apologetic salaams."

I could go on and on. After picking up the book I decided to read it cover to cover, but after about a hundred and fifty pages, I simply opened it and read the stories randomly. After a time I began to open the book onto stories I had already read, and found that I couldn't help but to reread them. Finally, I became apprehensive in fear that I might have missed something.

But no matter. If I haven't gotten to one yet, I will eventually. The book has already become an old friend, and like an old friend I will return to its comfort and joys for many years to come.

2006-01-16 (Sacramento, CA) | Helpful Votes: 17 | Rating: 5

---

Pnin (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)

Product Details

• Quarters: New
• ISBN13: 9781400041985
• Notes: BUY WITH Conviction, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and armed forces to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

One of the best-loved of Nabokov’s novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.

Initially an almost grotesquely comic figure, Pnin gradually grows in stature by contrast with those who laugh at him. Whether taking the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he has not mastered or throwing a faculty party during which he learns he is losing his job, the gently preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader’s deepest protective instinct.

Serialized in The New Yorker and published in book form in 1957, Pnin brought Nabokov both his first National Book Award nomination and hitherto unprecedented popularity.

---

Customer Reviews

Brilliantly ambiguous
Nabokov displays the full range of his considerable talent in this novel. The story is often quite funny, understated humor occasionally giving way to slapstick as the narrator describes the actions and thoughts of the irascible Panin, whose struggles with the mundane mechanics of existence (travel, employment, noise, gadgetry), with love, with memory, and with English sentence structure and pronunciation (despite Panin's certainty that he has mastered the language) are hilarious. At other times the story is deeply moving--the brief description of Panin's pain as he recalls the death of a former lover in a Nazi extermination camp is heartbreaking. At all times Nabokov tells the story of Panin in achingly beautiful, evocative, luminous, pitch perfect prose.

The novel, while short, lends itself to lengthy analysis and discussion. Is the narrator's description of Panin reliable, given Panin's evident animosity toward him? Is Panin a victim of circumstances or does he manufacture his own fate? Has Panin lost faith, lost hope? How will Panin react to the final blow, delivered at the novel's end? Is Panin ultimately a creature of the narrator's imagination--perhaps the narrator's alter-ego? It is a measure of Nabokov's genius that these questions (and many others) can be answered in so many different ways. The only thing that is certain about the story is its brilliance. I would give it 4 1/2 stars if Amazon offered that option.

2010-08-28 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

"Coming To America" Nabokov Style
I'm taunted by the black and white photo on the back of my Pnin: a dapper Nabokov, holding his own copy of the novel and sardonically gazing through time at me, challenging me to determine the real Professor Timofey Pnin, the real narrator, the significance of the recurring squirrel. There's a trickster's gleam in his eye, and Pnin, while a fairly uncomplicated little novel, is not without literary chicanery and sophistication. And partially, it's that subterfuge on one level and the simplicity of a Nabokovian version of "Coming to America" (or maybe even a less licentious "Borat" ) that make this an enchanting novel. (Professor Pnin in Eddie Murphy's role, but instead of an African king clashing with his new American culture, we get a Russian émigré academic and his culture clashes sans all the women and without the NYC flashiness. But hilarity ensues all the same. Plus there's the added bonus of Nabokov`s opulent prose.)

Describing Pnin's character is difficult because he's filtered through the eyes of a questionable narrator (who only enters the narrative as Pnin is leaving it, literally with the narrator chasing him down the highway). With this is the added complexity that our narrator has filled in the holes of his knowledge of Pnin's life and "timeline" with the stories two other characters tell of Pnin. And these guys seem to have great contempt for our (anti)hero (I won`t give their identities away here).

If the narrator is who I think he is (and I'm pretty sure of this but since half the fun is figuring it out for yourself, I shall remain mum. The clues are all there.), then Pnin himself, as the narrator recounts, tells a table full of Russian émigrés that he is not to be believed. "He makes up everything. He once invented that we were schoolmates in Russia and cribbed at examinations. He is a dreadful inventor." And there's a wink from Nabokov in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

In my view, the narrator merely appears omniscient --- he has only pieced together Pnin's narrative from cumulative knowledge and opinions of the man and fills the parts he was not witness to with literary flourishes to make a cohesive narrative of Pnin`s life. The Pnin that appears through most of the novel is utterly ridiculous, hilarious , and completely without artifice. Reader, you won't forget him, whether it's his true demeanor or not. He's lovable and charming because of his kind intentions, gentle heart, and academic talents, but he's SO totally inflexible and neurotic. He kinda reminds me of Larry David in "Curb Your Enthusiasm", where neuroticism and absurd idiosyncracies form most of the plot.

One of the major themes of the novel deals with Pnin's refusal (or inability) to understand American culture and the English language --- he doesn't get Charlie Chaplin films but he loves old Soviet "documentaries" (probably propaganda). One of my favorite scenes involves Joan (Pnin calls her "John"), the wife of a colleague, attempting to explain American advertisements and humour to him: "I do not want, John. You know I do not understand what is advertisement and what is not advertisement." The scene ends with Pnin sobbing "I haf nofing left, nofing, nofing!"

Much of the humour is tied to linguistic misunderstandings and Pnin's attempts to master the English language; a house-warming party becomes a house-heating, being fired is being shot, soda is viscous and sawdust. The narrator deadpans that "Except for such not very helpful odds and ends as `the rest is silence,' `nevermore,' `weekend,' `who's who,' and a few ordinary words like `eat,' `street,' `fountain pen,' `gangster,' `Charleston,' and marginal utility' he had no English at all at the time he left France for the States." His language mistakes and the formality and stiffness of his English is no doubt comical, but it does feel a little mean-spirited to laugh (especially as I'm sure my burgeoning German skills are very, very rough at times).

And then. And then we get a completely other Pnin, right at the very end of the novel when we've settled into his flaws and all. The narrator begins to speak of his first- hand knowledge of Timofey Pnin and we see vestiges and shadows of an utterly different man. There are hints all through the novel of doubling and twinning, but this motif explodes when we learn of an arrogant, confident, fully adept Professor Pnin, suavely handling the English language and lectures to rooms full of academics (in contrast to his sweaty and nervous lecture at the beginning of the novel to the Cremona Women's club).

And there's satire galore. Satire of academia, (of both students and professors), satire of psychoanalysis and psychology (some of the best moments in the novel), and satire of mid-century American culture in general, the Midwest and youth culture in particular. We get Nabokov's famously elliptical writing, as the beginning and end mirror each other, and we get frolicsome but fanatically managed writing. I'm only left questioning the purpose of the grey squirrel's appearances, so I guess maybe this isn't such a simple little novel.

So I should probably compare this to the eponymous Lolita (the only other Nabokov I've read). That Nabokov is here, in Pnin, but he's loosened his tie a bit. Truthfully, I think I enjoyed this more if only because I could read it purely for pleasure, far from the pressures of professors and thesis statements, and the pressures that come with reading an author's most popular and most studied work.

2010-08-11 (Germany) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Good
A book I've tried to read several times, but didn't get into. I'm not sure why, having sat down with it with some more focus I found it extremely readable, entertaining and fast paced. It's also quite funny, and overall captures the lighter expression of life with a lot more substance and general engagement than Glory did. The book is all about the titular professor Pnin, with his odd manerisms and only partial successful adaptation to the United States, and the array of odd encounters he has. It's clearly aiming for less ambitious and more surface story than Lolita or Pale Fire, and on that grounds it succeeds, making a fun, interesting and well written book. At the same time, by the end it doesn't seem to have offered as much of insight or underlying meta-drama as I've come to expect with Nabokov. The degree to which it's autobigoraphical may be debated, on the whole certainly less than Transparent Things, and it should be said that this factor doesn't inhibit the presentation of deep intimacy with the subject. That's what being a skilled writer means, one can convey more than just their own life with utter conviction.

Better than: Glory by Vladimir Nabokov
Worse than: Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov

2010-08-04 | Raskolnikov (The American Midwest) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

The pompous posing of punning Professor Pnin
Unlike Nabokov's other English-language novels, "Pnin" was written for serial publication; of the seven chapters, four appeared in The New Yorker; two were rejected by the magazine (one for being "unpleasant"); and the last chapter was written for the book. Individually, the stories would hardly have seemed out of place in pages that hosted Thurber and Cheever. Nabokov's series of interrelated sketches about Professor Timofey Pnin have a Wodehousian quality about them; the rather lovable, frequently arrogant, always clueless Russian emigre bumbles about the novel with blithe finesse.

The episodic nature of the chapters has led some readers to regard the book as disjointed (as did various potential publishers, who rejected the novel as too short and inchoate). Yet I believe that, in spite of the lack of a continuous storyline, this is among Nabokov's strongest works, in large part because Pnin takes on a life of his own when the seven sketches are read together. From the moment early in the first chapter that "Professor Pnin was on the wrong train," Pnin is the plot, and the obstacles placed in the trajectory of his life are ordeals he inflicts upon himself in his Chaplinesque dealings with neighbors and landlords, with audiences on the lecture circuit, and (above all) with the faculty members of Waindell (read: Cornell) College. And, typically for a Nabokov novel, the final chapter makes us wonder if Pnin's legendary struggles are literally the stuff of legend.

"It was the world that was absent-minded and it was Pnin whose business it was to set it straight." This overconfident bungler is almost certainly an amalgamation of every Russian scholar Nabokov knew--including himself. Pnin boasts "a bright foreigner's fondness for puns"--a quality he shares with the author, notorious for an unrelenting punning that extends to the very name of his character. Similarly, the professor's misfortunes as a victim of scholarly squabbling recall Nabokov's unpleasant experiences with departmental politics; David Lodge, perhaps today's leading virtuoso of the campus novel, has cited "Pnin" as one of the earliest examples of the genre, and the satire of academic life will resonate with anyone who has ever gone to college. And a final reason to recommend this shortest of novels is the lightheartedness and warmth it achieves while still evoking the solitary melancholy of Pnin's American life. Readers intimidated by the literary acrostics of "Pale Fire" or the heavyweight infamy of "Lolita" might find "Pnin" comparatively accessible; the book that first established Nabokov's reputation among American readers as an incomparable stylist, it's a great introduction to his oeuvre.

2010-03-21 (Brooklyn, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

To be placed among the best novellas.
This is the first Nabokov I have experienced, and it has kindled (I should be compensated by that plug) further exploratory interests. I had never known Nabokov was so good a writer; actually, he is better than good, if I may be so bold from a single reading. Nabokov steadfastly belongs with that long-lined confederacy of Russian writers that have proven their artistic mettle. With Pnin, attentive reading will be needed to unearth the symbolism inherent therein a casual reading will miss. This is an art-work for both the casual reader and the intellectual detective, the latter will obtain the most from its digestion. Though not pulp fiction, ironically its emergence comes unto us from that incipient structure of the the story-installment magazine form (a la Dickens, et.al.). Pnin marks the story of a Russian emigre from the Bolshevik Revolution to America and his difficulties at blending-in to Americana as a professor of Russian Literature via the ''campus story'' sub-genre of fiction -- among the first of such experiments. The story is told from an omniscient Narrator, who knows Timofey Pnin and is himself a character introduced late in the novella. It is difficult to tell whether the Narrator is a friend or the nemesis of Pnin, for the latter is ''skewered'' in farcical scorn form. The Narrator treats of Pnin non-heroically, yet one gets glimpses here (from Pnin's) interior senses, he is heroic (in the sense of noble, self-sacrificing, and altruistic. Who does the Reader believe? A bathetic Pnin from the Narrator's perspective or empathetic Pnin from a close reading? Does the Life of Pnin truly fall apart or does he bounce back as he meets yet another life-changing experience at the ending? The reader will exit with questions of his/her own about the symbolism and metaphor permeating the novella -- What of the squirrels? The ant? The dogs? other animalia?

2010-02-22 | marvin (Charlottesville, VA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Pale Fire (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

Description

Introduction by Richard Rorty

---

Like Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire is a masterpiece that imprisons us inside the mazelike head of a mad émigré. Yet Pale Fire is more outrageously hilarious, and its narrative convolutions make the earlier book seem as straightforward as a fairy tale. Here's the plot--listen carefully! John Shade is a homebody poet in New Wye, U.S.A. He writes a 999-line poem about his life, and what may lie beyond death. This novel (and seldom has the word seemed so woefully inadequate) consists of both that poem and an extensive commentary on it by the poet's crazy neighbor, Charles Kinbote.

According to this deranged annotator, he had urged Shade to write about his own homeland--the northern kingdom of Zembla. It soon becomes clear that this fabulous locale may well be a figment of Kinbote's colorfully cracked, prismatic imagination. Meanwhile, he manages to twist the poem into an account of Zembla's King Charles--whom he believes himself to be--and the monarch's eventual assassination by the revolutionary Jakob Gradus.

In the course of this dizzying narrative, shots are indeed fired. But it's Shade who takes the hit, enabling Kinbote to steal the dead poet's manuscript and set about annotating it. Is that perfectly clear? By now it should be obvious that Pale Fire is not only a whodunit but a who-wrote-it. There isn't, of course, a single solution. But Nabokov's best biographer, Brian Boyd, has come up with an ingenious suggestion: he argues that Shade is actually guiding Kinbote's mad hand from beyond the grave, nudging him into completing what he'd intended to be a 1,000-line poem. Read this magical, melancholic mystery and see if you agree. --Tim Appelo

---

Customer Reviews

Nabokov's great satire
Okay, so I'd actually give Pale Fire 4.5 stars, but I'll round it up to 5.

This is a very witty and amusing book, that also has a pretty good poem in it. Its structure is not just a novelty that wears thin, it stands up as a cohesive work. It's marvellous how he creates a novel in the guise of footnotes and a poem. Also, I love reading books that introduce new words into my vocabulary.

I prefer Lolita to Pale Fire. Perhaps because I prefer Humbert Humbert to Charles the Beloved, but more likely because the footnotes read less like prose, and Nabokov is a master of prose.

Still, I highly recommend that any lover of books and language read Pale Fire.

2010-06-03 (Boston, MA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

"Man's life as commentary to abstruse / Unfinishd poem..."
I loved it. The poem, the prose, the structure, the story, the comedy, the irony - the book delivered it all.

The ostensible subject of the book is a poem by a fictional poet John Shade with hilarious commentaries/footnotes by his supposed close friend Charles Kinbote.

If you're not liking the set-up already, please stay away; it gets better.

Kinbote hilariously and almost willingly misunderstands and misinterprets the poem to mean something entirely different and basically hi-jacks the literary commentary, goes off on tremendous tangents, and chronicles his own life in the footnotes thereby making John Shade's observation in his poem true:

Man's life as commentary to abstruse
Unfinished poem. Note for further use. (p. 67)

Thus Pale Fire is about Charles Kinbote's life as commentary to an abstruse and unfinished poem by John Shade.

Beautiful.

No need to make fool of myself for adding more comments to an abstruse yet finished work.

2010-03-18 (T.Kyo, Japan) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

When Inmates (Think They) Run the Asylum
Nabokov's PALE FIRE provides some highly entertaining reading but also leaves me wondering what more I should have gotten from it. There is so much to this multifaceted author that I always fear to be missing some allusion, some inference, some idea beyond my ken as I read his creative prose. PALE FIRE, of course offers more than creative prose for it also offers up a very meaningful poem, the first poetry I've read by Nabokov, and I am most impressed by his skill as a poet in addition to that as a novelist.

The inclusion of the poem is, of course, vital to the structure of the novel since the book is built on the comments of Kinbote, who is annotating and explicating the poem for the rest of us, yet the poem could stand by itself with hardly any difficulty at all. For the most part, the poem presents us with the forlorn thoughts and ruminations on the possibility of an afterlife by John Shade, who has lost his beloved daughter to suicide, quite a different theme from what follows in Kinbote's commentaries. The fourth canto, however, has left me wondering. Its language, tone and tenor are different from those of the first three cantos. It sounds less developed and less polished than the others, and it includes a metaphor to "Old Zembla's fields," and Zembla is the imagined country of which Kinbote thought himself king! That is not Shade speaking. Has Kinbote rewritten the fourth canto is his own words? This is an example of what I said above about not quite grasping the full significance of some of Nabokov's writing. There is a change of focus (and author?) in the last fourth of the poem whose significance I cannot entirely comprehend. I must get Meyer's interpretive book FIND WHAT THE SAILOR HAS HIDDEN: VLADIMIR NABOKOV'S PALE FIRE. Her vision of Nabokov's creation is likely much clearer than mine.

The majority of pages, of course, present us the thoughts and explanations of Charles Kinbote, but we are not really meant to understand Shade's poem through those thoughts. Instead, we are meant to understand the warped mind of Charles Kinbote, who imagines himself the exiled king of Zembla. This technique is precisely the one that Nabokov uses in LOLITA, in which we come to understand the delusions of Humbert Humbert. In that novel, we see, interpret and understand the entire world through the eyes and brain of a pedophile. In PALE FIRE, we see Kinbote's self concept and his relationship with the poet John Shade through the eyes and brain of a delusional, egocentric fellow, not as damaging to others as Humbert but just as unrealistic in his expectations and interpretation of the outer world.

In another parallel between Kinbote and Humbert, we see Kinbote blaming perceived sleights by his poet friend on obstructions raised by Shade's wife, just as Humbert saw everyone in the world--except for the nymphets, of course--as misshapen and repulsive. Each man is interpreting the rest of the world as he believes or wants it to be, not as it is, and perhaps this is as good a definition of insanity as anything else, for insanity is certainly the topic of the book.

"Pale fire," of course, refers to moonlight, which is, after all, stolen from the sun. I spent a great deal of time trying to comprehend parts of the novel in terms of this thievery but eventually concluded that the title refers to the lunatics (literally, those made insane by the effects of moonlight) in the book rather than thievery--although, in a sense, Kinbote does "steal" Shade's poem at the end in order to annotate and publish it with his own commentary, so perhaps both meanings are indeed present. Kinbote is the primary lunatic in the novel, although Jack Gray, escaped from the asylum and metamorphosed into the regicide Gradus in Kinbote's mind, qualifies as well. Between them, they manage first to destroy the poet and then to purloin his work.

The treatment of poor, misguided Kinbote, who understands little of Shade's poem and who orients all of his commentary toward his own personal objectives and sees everything in terms of his own delusions, makes me think that perhaps Nabokov is tweaking literary critics in this book as well. After all, his contemporary critics were not especially kind to him, and PALE FIRE can be read, at least in part, as a commentary on their sanity, critical, yet expressed in such a humorous manner that those on the receiving end of the verbal bodkin do not realize that they are being skewered until the deed is done.

If anyone has actually read this far, let me apologize for attempting an explication of the novel rather than just a reader review, for I do not pretend to be qualified to do the former. I am just so overwhelmed at the multiplicity of possible interpretations of this delicious and unusual novel that ideas bubble out of their own volition. PALE FIRE is close to a "must read" category, yet it may not be the best of Nabokov for one to start with. If one wishes to explore the mind of this incredible writer, I suggest beginning with PNIN, continuing with LOLITA, and then enjoying PALE FIRE. The experiences that one has with the first two books will, I feel, be of great help in appreciating this one.

ADDED COMMENTARY TWO WEEKS LATER: Thanks to Interlibrary Loan, I've now read Priscilla Meyer's book FIND WHAT THE SAILOR HAS HIDDEN. Her analysis of Nabokov's themes, allusions, and references, not just in PALE FIRE but in all of his works, is, to say the very least, illuminating. I knew I was surely missing much of what Nabokov embedded in his novel, but I had no inkling of how much I was missing. To glean everything that Nabokov has woven into his writings would require an intimate knowledge of authors and editors from Pushkin to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of King Alfred, not mention Shakespeare and ancient Norse legends. Meyer's analytical book will, however, give the general reader a much greater understanding of Nabokov's themes, and I highly recommend it to anyone who feels challenged by Nabokov's works and wishes to more fully appreciate them. As to the interpretation of this book's title, "pale fire" alludes to a multiplicity of concepts, including the pale nature of translated literature in comparison with the original and the pale nature of this mortal life compared with the beauty of the afterlife as Nabokov imagined it.

2010-02-17 (SPEARFISH, SD USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

A brilliant tour-de-force!
I first read Nabokov's exercise in meta-fiction when I was 18 years old. I found it amusing. Re-reading it again at age 56, it found it f-ing brilliant. Charles Kinbote is, in many ways, the ultimate "unreliable narrator." Ostensibly, he is writing a "commentary" on a long poem by the American poet John Shade. (The poem itself is particularly beautiful, and in no need of a lengthy explanation.) But Kinbote goes on (and on and on and on) providing comments that are, at best, obliquely about the content of the poem, and primarily about himself and the fictional land of Zembla. At one point Kinbote says "I have no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous apparatus criticus into the monstrous semblance of a novel." But of course, that's exactly what Nabokov has done so brilliantly. As a portrait of the absurdities of American academia in the mid-20th-century, it is sharp-witted and spot on. In the end, I'm not sure who I feel more sorry for: Shade, whose final great poem has wound up in the hands of a clueless narcissist, or Kinbote himself, who cannot see how his own perspective is so hugely at odds with what he claims it to be. A real tour-de-force, and really, really funny.

2010-01-20 (Chicago, IL USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Into The Maze
"Pale Fire" may be the most formally perfect novel I've ever read. It's a leap over even Lolita (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) in sheer originality and inventiveness. ("Lolita"'s beauty of language keeps it maybe a smidgen ahead of "Pale Fire" overall.) It resembles a maze or a crossword puzzle: only there is real flesh, blood and pain involved. I will say I did have some difficulty with the Zemblan elements of the novel. They seemed a little far-fetched and silly to me. But again, that's where Nabokov gets you: a madman might come up with a fantasy world that is just as far-fetched. The novel is tantalizingly open to multiple interpretations. Is Kinbote insane? Or is he really the deposed king of Zembla. Or maybe he doesn't exist at all except as a literary device cooked up by the poet John Shade. Or maybe Shade is invented by Kinbote. Or maybe Kinbote and Shade were invented by the mad expatriate professor of Russian V. Botkin. Or maybe, just maybe, the ghost of the suicide Hazel Shade composed this book through her poet father. There are hints dropped all through "Pale Fire" to support every one of these theories. It's not frustrating, though, the way similar games are in the work of other writers. That's because of the remarkable wit that keeps you snickering throughout. And it's because of the sadness of the tragedy at the heart of the novel: the fate of Shade and his daughter, and the probable fate of Kinbote. As Richard Rorty writes in the introduction to this edition, maybe reading "Pale Fire" can convince the reader to be a little more compassionate and kind in a world where Nabokov's father could be assassinated in real life the same way Shade meets his destiny.

2009-08-08 (Heber City, UT) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780679727293
• Notes: BUY WITH Aplomb, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and help to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Persuade: New

Description

The annotated text of this modern classic. It assiduously illuminates the extravagant wordplay and the frequent literary allusions, parodies, and cross-references. Edited with a preface, introduction and notes by Alfred Appel, Jr.

---

In 1954 Vladimir Nabokov asked one American publisher to consider "a firebomb that I have just finished putting together." The explosive device: Lolita, his morality play about a middle-aged European's obsession with a 12-year-old American girl. Two years later, the New York Times called it "great art." Other reviewers staked a higher moral ground (the editor of the London Sunday Express declaring it "the filthiest book I've ever read"). Since then, the sinuous novel has never ceased to astound. Even Nabokov was astonished by its place in the popular imagination. One biographer writes that "he was quite shocked when a little girl of eight or nine came to his door for candy on Halloween, dressed up by her parents as Lolita." And when it came time to casting the film, Nabokov declared, "Let them find a dwarfess!"

The character Lolita's power now exists almost separately from the endlessly inventive novel. If only it were read as often as it is alluded to. Alfred Appel Jr., editor of the annotated edition, has appended some 900 notes, an exhaustive, good-humored introduction, and a recent preface in which he admits that the "reader familiar with Lolita can approach the apparatus as a separate unit, but the perspicacious student who keeps turning back and forth from text to Notes risks vertigo." No matter. The notes range from translations to the anatomical to the complex textual. Appel is also happy to point out the Great Punster's supposedly unintended word play: he defends the phrase "Beaver Eaters" as "a portmanteau of 'Beefeaters' (the yeoman of the British royal guard) and their beaver hats."

---

Customer Reviews

She was Lo, plain Lo without the annotations
I came across the unannotated version of Lolita in summer 2004 when I was a raging philosophy maniac whose obsession was everything existentialism and thinking about The Meaning of Life - in general, I wasn't a very happy person to say the least.

Toward the end of a strenuous and almost cruel summer reading syllabus I had imposed on myself (Soren and Friedrich I could handle, but Martin and J.P. gave me the existential headache), came this brilliant gem of fiction, an oasis in the desert of angst and bad faith, a breather for my nothingness of a mind that craved being-not-in-the-world. Thanks to Vivian Darkbloom, I achieved veritable transcendence of my ego.

Onto my impressions of the novel. I remember the first part being tantalizingly erotic and second part average. So engrossed was I in poor Humbert Humbert's fantasies and seduction that, in a manner of speaking I had to repeatedly resort to the good old manuo-frictional means of extinguishing the fire of my loins. The second part, however, disappointed me and when I began my second fill of Lolita, I remembered nothing about the second part, save the scene where Humbert Humbert makes an advance at Dolores when she's studying and she says, "Oh not again."

Gentlemen and ladies of the jury, if you have had your fill of Lolita once without the benefit of the annotations, you can easily understand my plight when I decided to go through it again, especially when one is loath to have recourse to the all too conventional means of extinguishing the aforementioned fire. But my apprehensions, it turns out, came to naught.

The annotations, I must confess, are tremendously helpful. I did not recognize to what magnitude I missed the allusions, echoes, jokes, and delightful word plays our Hum engages in. It is staggering how much he is able to weave into the narrative. Frankly, I missed, without exaggeration, 100% of it. I was, as the diligent annotator notes in his recondite and illuminating 64-page introduction, Nabokov's ideal reader-puppet.

Not so, this time. Thanks to the annotations and two years of reading hard literature plus two years of French, I was able to see the cracks and holes in Lolita and enjoy it as an artistic artifice that it is. Strangely, I experienced no tumescence - not one bit - and enjoyed it on a totally different aesthetic level.

In short, although the prolix and detailed annotations may have taken away from the reading experience, I still enjoyed Lolita very much. There are slow parts, however, I had a hard time getting through. For example, the first 20 pages of Part Deux where H.H. and Dolly travel across les etats unis boasts more than enough expositions to drive you to the edge of despair and tantrum.

My favorite scenes are, in order: 1)the last scene with Humbert and Quilty; 2) the Enchanted Hunters hotel scene; and 3) the interviews with the Beardsley School headmistress. Like any work of literature, there are more than its fair share of slow parts whose necessity is in big question at least from the humble reader's perspective.

Insofar as the novel manages to both engage on the gut emotional level (especially the first time without the annotations) and intellectual, literary, and artistic level, Lolita remains, and will remain, one of my absolute favorites.

The four stars for the second level of reading. Overall, I give it 5 stars.

Another must read.

2010-01-08 (T.Kyo, Japan) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

---

Great Edition of a Great Book
This is one of the most remarkable books ever written in the English language. I read in awe poetic language whose fluency is simply extraordinary, doubly so given Nabakov's Russian birth. The insights into human nature are shocking and have affected me deeply over the years since I first read it. This particular edition is well supported by a delightful introduction and comprehensive and thoroughly helpful annotations.

2009-11-01 (Atlanta, GA, United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Elphinstone Is In Utah
There's not really much I can add to the reviews of "The Annotated Lolita." Everyone seems to have everything covered. But I will say this edition of the book is the one you want if you have read the book for the first time, were dazzled, and want to know more (that's how I came to it.) Appel appears to have tracked down every allusion Nabokov makes, which almost led me to believe that Nabokov was playing another game, disguising himself as a Prof. Appel (I later learned to my mild disappointment that the man actually did exist.)

I will add one minor detail. Nabokov spent a little time in Utah on several trips, for academic reasons and looking for butterflies: a couple of visits were several months in duration. I live in Utah, so it was with some delight that I spotted a few hints that Elphinstone, the small town were Humbert loses Lo, is based on a town in Utah. The physical description matches the terrain of several Utah valleys. The clinchers are: in the hospital Humbert reads the newspaper the "Deseret News", the local LDS-church-owned paper that still exists. And Humbert says that Elphinstone is a small town graced with a temple. In the 1940's this could only have meant Manti, St George, Logan, or even Salt Lake, which might have looked like a small town to the worldly Nabokov. In any case, the temple and the newspaper seem to definitively pin down the fictional Elphinstone as a Utah town. (I also have a pet theory that Cedarn, the small mountain town where Kinbote frantically writes his notes in Pale Fire (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) is Cedar City in southwestern Utah. But there's no way to prove this as certain.)

2009-08-09 (Heber City, UT) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Not what I expected...
I'll start by saying this book is nothing like I expected it to be. From reading reviews for the movie Lolita, I expected this to be a story about a man who happens to fall in love with a teenage girl. It was continually referred to as a 'beautiful love story'. I don't know if the movie was changed drastically from the book or if those reviewers were just perverts, but this book is not really a love story, and is not even CLOSE to being beautiful. It's a dark, disturbing, and disgusting account of a mentally ill pedophile who becomes obsessed with a 12 year old girl and keeps her captive so he can molest and rape her. Anyone who thinks that that is love is seriously disturbed!

On the other hand, I absolutely LOVED the book. The dark humor, the cultural jabs, and the language were amazing! I found myself creeped out but laughing at the same time in many parts of the book. And honestly, I don't know how people could have found it boring because I couldn't stop turning the pages. The book is pure genius!

But if you're a more traditional reader who is hoping for a book with a good character vs bad character theme, or love story, or a plot with any type of moral... then you should skip this book. There are no 'good' characters in this book and there are no lessons learned. Also, if you aren't a literary type or not good with foreign languages you'll have to flip to the back of the book quite often to grasp alot of the story. I agree it would be better to read through it first, then go back to the annotations the second time around.

2009-06-05 (New York, USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

---

Reader ability is important
From reading some of the other reviews of this book, it is clear that many readers still make the assumption that the author necessarily condones the actions of the characters.

In the best art, the artist neither condones nor criticizes the actions; the work is not a didactic piece meant to coddle the readers, leaving them to make that determination for themselves.

For readers who lack the moral compass or judgment ability to make these decisions for themselves, the first reaction is to project the faults and failures of the characters onto the writer, labeling him or her the things that should, in fact, be said about the character. It is an immature and lazy way to read a book.

Excellent art is a mirror--it allows us to peer into it and in return, see ourselves, whether that is the self or humanity as a whole, see it for all its faults and splendors.

For readers who are looking for moral guidance, for criticism and not description, you are looking in the wrong book.

2009-02-03 | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

---

Nabokov: Novels 1955-1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire (Library of America)

Product Details

• Shape: New
• ISBN13: 9781883011192
• Notes: BUY WITH Poise, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and maintenance to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

The second in Library of America's three-volume collection of Vladimir Nabokov's novels, Novels 1955-1962 contains his most acclaimed and popular works. The short, often anthologized Pnin is included, as is Pale Fire, Nabokov's most elaborate fictional joke: it's a novel masquerading as a 999-line poem accompanied by a professorial pedant's extensive annotations. But this deluxe volume is most valuable for its inclusion of Lolita alongside the screenplay that Nabokov wrote for Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick's film is quite different from the version Nabokov intended, and Novels 1955-1962 offers the opportunity to compare Lolita's two Nabokovian incarnations with Kubrick's film and with the recent, very controversial movie directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jeremy Irons.

---

Customer Reviews

"Pale Fire" and "Lolita"
"Pnin" isn't that great, in my opinion. On the other hand, "Lolita" and "Pale Fire" are hilarious send ups of intellectuals (which Nabokov obviously was, too). That's right: "Lolita" isn't mainly about pedophilia--it's about the equally perverse desire to mold youth to fit one's own wishes.

2010-03-19 (Missouri) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

The best of Nabokov
Three classic novels and a solid screenplay adaptation -- Vladimir Nabokov's literary genius is perhaps best shown in the second volume of Library of America's collections. The classic "Lolita" is paired with its own screenplay adaptation, and the comic "Pnin" and witty "Pale Fire."

"Lolita" is the tale for which Nabokov is best known. The redundantly-named, middle-aged (dirty old man) Humbert Humbert is haunted by some teenage love he had long ago, and which he thinks he has refound in the prepubescent Delores Haze (called "Lolita" by Humbert). He sets out to seduce the unsuspecting girl, but her mom is standing in the way...

"Pnin" is a gently comic tale about Timofey Pnin, a timid, moderately neurotic Russian professor who now lives in the United States. He's amazed by technology, fussy, a bit weird about his health, and has problems with American train schedules. The unfortunate Pnin stumbles from one problem to another, trying to keep everything under control in uncontrollable circumstances.

"Pale Fire" is perhaps the best literary satire out there. Poet John Shade wrote the sprawling 999-line poem "Pale Fire," shortly before being murdered. After his death, the poem is being painstakingly dissected and annotated by his neighbor, Charles Kinbote. Except Kinbote is a nutjob, who interprets "Pale Fire" as being all about him, and will come up with weird symbolism to justify his belief.

"Lolita: A Screenplay" is almost a different version of "Lolita." Here Nabokov recounted the same events of the novel, but from an ominiscent perspective -- that of the person who would be watching the movie. Very rich, very well-adapted, very evocative for a screenplay, this is almost as good as a book in itself.

Nabokov could handle just about any kind of writing, this collection shows us. From the opulent poetry of "Pale Fire" to the solid screenplay, from the erotic drama of "Lolita" to the chuckling comedy of "Pnin," he handles it all. His writing is detailed and lush, rich almost to the point of choking. He shifts perspectives, tells a story through annotation, sees through the eyes of a pedophile, and does it all with a certain winking flair.

Nabokov's writing is a combination of believable characterizations and rich language. Humbert Humbert, for example, is a horrendously believable person, especially since he makes constant excuses for his pedaphilic behavior -- the characterization is so good, in fact, that newcomers might even think (incorrectly) that Nabokov sympathized with the creep. At the same time, he creates the rather pitiful, absentminded Pnin, the self-serving nutcase Kinbote -- and they're all delightfully three-dimensional. You could bump into people like these on the bus at any time, and they would be just as he describes them.

Comedy, drama, satire and screenwriting are collected in the second Library of America collection of Nabokov's novels. Sexy, funny, brilliant and exquisitely written, these are among the best of Vladimir Nabokov's works.

2004-03-29 | ea_solinas (MD USA) | Helpful Votes: 14 | Rating: 5

---

Nabokov a hard act to follow for other serious writers

Picture Vladimir Nabokov. In the hall of mirrors that is popular culture, he is the dirty man who wrote the dirty book "Lolita," about a 12-year-old "nymphet" -- he invented the term, by the way -- and her affair with an older man.

Angle the mirror another way, and he is one of the founders of the modernist novel, which to some people -- myself included -- that's a damning phrase. "Modernist" and "post-modernist" literature seems a) self-referencing to the point of egotism; b) dedicated to the advancement of decedent themes, and to score big points as a writer, pile it on, brother; and c) obsessed with the discovery that the "arts" -- whether books, pictures or movies -- are artificial, and that we use them to create, well, books, pictures and movies.

Unless you think I am making it up, here's an example drawn from real life: a few years back, a Charlotte museum mounted an exhibition of a painter's work, one of which was a canvas whose front side was turned toward the wall, exposing a paint-stained frame. A newspaper reviewer breathlessly informed the reading public that the artist did this "to inform the viewer that most paintings are recetangular."

Now, a reasonably intelligent person could probably reach that conclusion without much effort, but discoveries like these seem to drive those who tread into the "modern" era of art.

So Vlaidmir Nabokov's reputation is caught between two very opposing poles. He either panders to the worst tastes of man, or the worst tastes of art.

Fortunately, he is neither, and the Library of America agrees. The non-profit publisher throws its reputation behind Nabokov as a writer worth reading by publishing all of his English-language novels in three volumes. The first volume covers his work from 1941 to 1951: "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," "Bend Sinister," and his memoir, "Speak, Memory." The middle work contains the notorious "Lolita," "Pale Fire," "Pnin," and the "Lolita" screenplay Nabokov wrote for Stanley Kubrick. The concluding volume contains "Ada," "Transparent Things," and "Look at the Harlequins!"

But of these works, only "Lolita" stands alone. It is not a dirty book, and one should pity those American and British tourists who, in the mid-1950s, bought the pale olive-green two-volume paperbacks published in Paris by the notorious Olympia Press. Those expecting frankly pornographic stories like "The Story of O" and "How to Do It" would have been sorely disappointed in Humbert Humbert's self-confessed defense of his rape (not "seduction," which implies a willingness to be seduced) and exploitation of Delores Haze, "Lolita, light of my life,fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

Even Olympia's publisher was taken in, telling a mutual friend that he though Nabokov was Humbert, and that he was attempting to popularize nymphet love.

What does become apparent after reading through the volumes (and aided by an excellent two-volume biography by Brian Boyd) is that there is much more to Nabokov than meets the eye. Delving deeper in his works reveals a funhouse hall of mirrors that can lead to a definitive end, and there's not much in modernist fiction that could substantiate that claim.

What sets Nabokov off from other writers is his use of the language. Raised in Tsarist Russia, Nabokov was a child prodigy who was taught Russian, French and English at an early age. His prose is elegent, his command of English astounding. It's close to the prose of Henry James, but except for the foreign phrases, which the Library editions provide translations and explanations, far more understandable.

Descriptions pulled at random from "Lolita" ring as if English was a newly minted language, capable of expressing humor ("The bed was a frightful mess with overtones of potato chips") and snobbish anger ("Lo had grabbed some comics from the back seat and, mobile white-bloused, one brown elbow out of the window, was deep in the current adventure of some clout or clown").

Even, when Humbert meets his Lolita long after she escaped his clutches, when he believes that he still loves her, heart-rending: "In her washed-out grey eyes, strangely spectacled, our poor romance was for a moment reflected, pondered upon, and dismissed like a dull party, like a rainy picnic to which only the dullest bores had come, like a humdrum exercise, like a bit of dry mud caking her childhood."

This is not casual reading, but neither is it reading-as-masochistic exercise, with furrowed brows and an exasperated flipping of once-read pages. There is a surface meaning that is easily accessible, but there are deeper meanings, in-jokes, ironies and moral questions worthy of consideration.

The best volume of the three is the second, which contains "Lolita," the screenplay he wrote for Stanley Kubrick (which was not used), the comic novel (for Nabokov at least) "Pnin" and "Pale Fire."

But good works can be found in the other volumes as well. "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," in the first volume, is the author's account of his biographical research on his half-brother, the brilliant writer Sebastian Knight, who had died recently of a heart condition after writing a half-dozen novels. It bears all the hallmarks of the post-modernist novel replete with a self-absorption with writers, spurious biography, an unreliable narrator and ironical references. "Speak, Memory," also in the first volume, is Nabokov's memoirs about growing up in Russia.

Indeed, the only disadvantage to reading Nabokov is that it may cause a nagging niggling in the back of your head, while reading novels in the future, that they just cannot compare to those composed by the American from Russia.

2000-08-31 | Writers Gone Wild (Hershey, PA USA) | Helpful Votes: 30 | Rating: 5

---

Nabokov's Best
This is a compact, sturdy and high quality edition of the first novels Nabokov wrote entirely in English. It's the central volume in a three-volume set of Nabokov's autobiography and English fiction (excluding the short stories), including his finest achievements -- Lolita, Pnin and Pale Fire. The two versions of Lolita (as novel and screen adaptation) are illuminating to read together: the novel is created within Humbert's subjective and self-serving memory, while in the screenplay Nabokov reimagines the story as objective action. I was also intrigued to find that some obvious departures from the novel in Kubrick's film -- such as the opening scene of Humbert shooting Quilty, or the high school prom scene -- are ideas taken from the Nabokov screenplay (in turn fragments of the novel excised in the final version). Brian Boyd offers an impeccable text, much improved over the paperback editions, with a chronology of the author's life. This is the volume to choose if you u! nravel Nabokov's narrative patterns with your own marginal notes and comments, and want a volume that won't disintegrate in a nymphet's span of years.

1998-08-05 (Sebastopol, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 23 | Rating: 5

---