ŷ������

A fictional autobiography in which a novelist named Vadim Vadimovich looks back at his life, loves, and literary work. Perhaps the novel could be termed an “alternate biography,�� insofar as there are lots of parodic allusions to Nabokov’s own biography and his novels. I read this novel after reading many of Nabokov’s other works, so the parodies here made one kind of sense to me. However, I think it is possible to enjoy this novel without having read Nabokov’s other novels: for instance, if a reader reads this novel without having read the others, the result may be that the reader will decide to read Nabokov’s other works.

Nabokov is one of the great writers of English prose in the 20th century, and here there are masterful sentences describing settings and events, psychological states and human relations. Moreover, the novel is another example of Nabokov’s complex literary puzzles: in addition to some textual experimentation, there are images and phrases that recur in interesting contexts to keep those who search for the “figure in the carpet�� busy.

Acquired Jul 16, 2009
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario