Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
A few years ago while reading Pale Fire, one of Vladimir Nabokov's novels, my sister randomly latched onto some odd threads and kept chasing them.
Long story short, she found that the threads were part of a puzzle Nabokov had left behind, and that they led across six decades and ran through his entire body of work, including Lolita.
And she wrote a book.
The book goes on sale March 6th and the initial reviews are very positive. The first two are from two of the three big industry reviewers, Booklist and Kirkus, and both have given it a starred review.
What's especially cool about this is that while no one solved the puzzles he left behind while he was alive, he predicted someone would:
Long story short, she found that the threads were part of a puzzle Nabokov had left behind, and that they led across six decades and ran through his entire body of work, including Lolita.
And she wrote a book.
The book goes on sale March 6th and the initial reviews are very positive. The first two are from two of the three big industry reviewers, Booklist and Kirkus, and both have given it a starred review.
What's especially cool about this is that while no one solved the puzzles he left behind while he was alive, he predicted someone would:
And part of the Kirkus review:“In fact I believe that one day a reappraiser will come and declare that, far from having been a frivolous firebird, I was a rigid moralist: kicking sin, cuffing stupidity, ridiculing the vulgar and cruel—and assigning sovereign power to tenderness, talent and pride.”
This is mostly just a proud brother post, but if you're interested in literature and especially if you're interested in Nabokov you should check it out. It's possible it will force a reappraisal of everything one of the great writers of the 20th century ever published, and change his image as an amoral maker of art for art's sake.Vladimir Nabokov always claimed that art and politics don’t mix, but this new biography suggests his own art tells a different story.[snip]
Arriving in America and landing a teaching position, Nabokov focused on his writing and, as some saw it, forgot the past; he never spoke out against injustice, signed petitions, made speeches or even voted. [snip]
Yet, according to the author, in his own imaginative way, Nabokov was bearing witness to the horrors he knew. Drawing on new biographical material and her sharp critical senses, she reveals the tightly woven subtext of the novels [snip]
She suggests that Humbert Humbert, Lolita’s predatory narrator, is a Jew who has been destroyed by what he experienced during the war years. Hermann in Despair, the title character of Pnin and Kinbote in Pale Fire—all bear similar psychic wounds, victims of history who sometimes become villains. [snip]
...this is a brilliant examination that adds to the understanding of an inspiring and enigmatic life.
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