Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0-679-72725-6 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 May, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hail Colorfully Winged Muse!
Comment: Nabokov is very funny(in case you didn't already know that) and no matter what his subject matter the humor comes through. That is one of the gifts here, the other more obvious one is literature, specifically Russian literature, the tradition of which is a gift the Russian born Nabokov received and in this book he gives you his version of that tradition in brief and since this book would be the last book he wrote in Russian one assumes he is paying a quite deliberate homage to his homelands men of letters. But Nabokov is never serious for long and the laughs are always right around the corner or on the next page. This book is also about lead character Fyodor's gift which is his talent and that talent appears in wonderful ways all through the narrative. This was written in Nabokov's middle period while he lived in Berlin,Germany writing in a small hotel room with family and those circumstances just makes this all the more incredible because it is a very beautiful book. Perhaps Nabokov was wondering what he would do with his gift at this most uncertain pre-WWII moment in his life. His great books were still to come but this book is his first to show that he is no ordinary artist and it at least equals if not surpasses the later books in regards to appeal because it is so personal, or at least as personal as Nabokov gets. You know you are in the hands of a master when you suddenly realize the chapter you are reading is a dream even though it is written in a way that does not immediately give that away and so you share the dreamers belief that the dreamed moment is real(what is a Russian novel without a dream). But again Nabokovs humor comes into play as the clue that this is in fact a dream is only subtley inserted into the chapter. After early disruptions and tragedy(his father was assasinated by Russian police)Nabokov led a charmed life, perhaps willed it to be so, and this book is marked with that charm and his word magicians wit which were to be his life sustaining strengths and his father from whom he received the precious gift seems to benevolently haunt the margins of these farewell to Russia pages. And butterfly hunting is one of the more beautiful ways to describe the artists pursuit.
Rating: 4
Summary: Another Russian writer called Fyodor.
Comment: "The Gift" will mark the last of Nabokov's novels
in Russian as well as his farewell ode to the pre-Bolshevik
literature which formed him. The book follows a
young poet, Fyodor, who lives in Berlin (as Nabokov did) in
the 1920s. Fyodor's verses don't sell too well, so he
decides to undertake a critical biography of a cherished
Russian literary icon. In doing so he tuggles with Turgenev,
dismisses Dostoyevsky, and pushes Pushkin in the self-confident, pretentious, and sometimes brilliant manner in
which Nabokov himself presented these writers in his Russian
lit courses.
Nabokov, in the 1962 introduction to this book,
claims that Fyodor is not his alter ego; but what
Nabokov character isn't? Who doesn't grasp the Nabokovian
slyness of Humbert Humbert, or the Nabokovian froideur of
Lolita and Sebastian Knight? With "The Gift", Nabokov stirs
up the apparent nostalgia of dark Berlin streets, lean years,
and literary fervor; and by the end, you are imagining young
Vlad in his tattered trenchcoat, smoking his Gauloises,
dreaming up the next novel in between butterfly chases and
long letters to his faraway childhood love.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nice book
Comment: This is Nabokov's finest Russian novel. It contains his most detailed description of what he refers to in Speak, Memory as "cosmic synchronization". Also note the contrast between the epigraph of this book and that of Invitation to a Beheading.
 |
Title: The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679727221 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 11 August, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679725318 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Glory by VLADIMIR NABOKOV ISBN: 0679727248 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 05 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Mary by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679726209 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 20 November, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679723420 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
