As the other reviewers write, this is a great literary companion, especially to Ulysses. Nabokov writes wonderfully. I can imagine that most people would read this book as they read Mansfield Park, Madame Bovary, Bleak House, etc and would flip back and forth. However, my paperback copy was very poorly bound and fell apart. So my advice is get the hardcover edition.

In his opening lecture, Nabokov says, " ... great novels are great fairy tales -- and the novels in this series are supreme fairy tales." The tales discussed are Austen's "Mansfield Park," Dickens' "Bleak House," Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Proust's "The Walk by Swann's Place," Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and Joyce's "Ulysses." In addition, there are lectures "Good Readers and Good Writers," "The Art of Literature and Commonsense," and "L'Envoi" -- the first being his opening and the last being his closing comments on the course. These are lectures not polished by Nabokov for publication. There is a companion volume on Russian literature.

The examination of the works here is purely literary. The works are examined in minute detail. For example, in "The Metamorphosis," Nabokov goes to some length to determine what insect Gregor became. Not a cockroach, as some suggest, but rather a beetle. And he draws pictures. He wants us to understand the layout of the rooms in the Samsa flat. The devil -- that is, the art -- is in the details. Some might object that there is more to some of these works than is discerned by such a point of view. Granted, but nothing precludes looking elsewhere for (say) a more philosophical treatment of "The Metamorphosis," or God forbid, thinking about it on one's own.

In his closing comments, Nabokov says, "In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys -- literary masterpieces. I have tried to make of you good readers who read books not for the infantile purpose of identifying oneself with the characters, and not for the adolescent purpose of learning to live, and not for the academic purpose of indulging in generalizations. I have tried to teach you to read books for the sake of their form, their visions, their art. I have tried to teach you to feel a shiver of artistic satisfaction, to share not the emotions of the people in the book but the emotions of its author -- the joys and difficulties of creation. We did not talk around books, about books; we went to the center of this or that masterpiece, to the live heart of the matter."

just a correction: Nabokov wrote two different books "lectures on literature" and "lectures on Russian literature." most reviewers here are talking about the wrong book.

Let me preface this by saying I have never read Nabokov, and am only familiar with him thru second-hand knowledge of his works: that is, until reading 'The Eye'. He has quite a following of pretentious college students, and now I can see why. This book is not that great, but supposedly this is not his best work, so it's to be expected. I found that it was empty and devoid of meaning, but written in such a way as to make you think there was some sort of meaning behind it. Nabokov just threw together some very 'deep' thoughts and had the protagonist use irony to appeal to the sardonic in all of his readers. I've seen this done much better in REAL detective novels such as Chandler's, for crying out loud! This is literary? Literary my eye! (pun intended)

Closer to four-and-a-half stars. Spectacular; for a novel that tips in at just over one-hundred pages, "The Eye" is a marvel of imagery and literary sleight-of-hand. Nabokov, one of the most deviously ingenious writers of the 20th century, offers this short, but striking insight into the protean nature of human identity. Through the character of Smurov--a suicide victim whose thoughts go on even after his death--Nabokov explores the psyche of Everyman, the manifold ways in which we perceive ourselves, and are perceived by others. Standing outside his body, the detached first-person narrator observes himself (Smurov) in his daily interactions with others and longs to learn more about himself by learning how others see him. But even beyond its philosophical/existential implications, "The Eye" is simply great fun to read. Nabokov's writing, even in translation, is beautiful and his deft manipulation of character is unparalleled. It is unlikely that you will find another novel that delivers as much bang for the literary buck.

This is the best novel of Nabokov's I've read since Lolita. Though not as fine a work as that great novel by far you can see in the main character Smurov echoes of the later protagonist. What is more, being such a short book it is not too great an investment of your time.

Basically, this book is an ailing author's reflections on his life and works. The author is a very thinly disguised Nabokov - indeed, it is possible to treat "Look at the Harlequins" as a pseudo-testimony by Nabokov.

As such, it demands of the reader a familiarity with Nabokov's works - I can't imagine that the novel would have anything like its intended effect had one not read Nabokov's other novels. Whilst this is not uninteresting, it seemed to me that Nabokov was making two large assumptions:

(a) that, as I mentioned above, the reader would have the necessary background knowledge; and

(b) that the reader would be interested in this form of testimony as opposed to a straightforward autobiography (I confess I have not yet read "Speak, Memory").

Indeed, there is fun to be had with spotting the allusions to the real Nabokov's works. Yet, it seemed to me to be a rather sad book, not only because the main character is struggling with the onset of dementia, but it also reflects what I feel to be Nabokov's obsession with his status in modern literature - I suspect he wanted to be thought of as a great author, when in fact he was a middling one.

To get all the book's humor requires not only having read the collected works of Vladimir Nabokov, but all the idiotic things forgotten reviewers wrote about his work. Vadim, the Russian émigré narrator is a parody of misconceptions - at least what Nabokov considered misconceptions - of his character, in particular, that he must have been a pederast . Nabokov was playing with various imaginable pasts for someone with his general background, but his play seems to me to be as heavy-handed as his narrator is incapable of happiness in any of his relationships. Compared to its immediate predecessors (the seemingly endless Ada, and the brief but opaque Transparent Things) Look at the Harlequins is readable, but for me the last novels are a marked decline from his earlier masterpieces.

There are certainly pleasures in the text and flashes of wit, but overall the fictional memoir of a passive cloddish alter ego is a disappointment, a not-very-fun series of games and in-jokes. It seems to me that Vadim understood but cannot implement the title's command. At least he doesn't enjoy those he manages to see as harlequins there to amuse him.

Beginning with a list of the author's "other" books, which don't exist outside the distorted mirror world of what Nabakov calls "LATH" (as he acronymically pegs Look At The Harlequins! within that book's own text) is a wildly inventive metafiction in the bilingually verbose hyper-alliterative Nabokovian mold. We get splendid sentences here on the jeweled gift of selfhood giving reason to resist suicide from whatever facet, cranky meditations on the author's pederastic proclivities and ego, and, most brilliantly, strange slips down the semiotic slope into madness. In two or three places in this book we find ourselves in a meticulously rendered literary reality and then, through a process of what one might call overdescription as exquisite as it is subtle, we find that our narrator has lost contact with the very rich world he has created for us; there is also a (to me) fascinating motif of the author's self-analysis of a strange spatial or geographical malady: he cannot mentally reverse himself and return after picturing a scene in his mind's eye. (This perhaps is meant as a sly parallel to time's one-way flow: time, which via the magic of the book, as opposed to the temporal incarceration of life, can be reversed--a hint of a kind of "law of nature" that might apply to a "real" metafictional character.) And despite the hefty overlap of the life of the protagonist with that of Nabokov (e.g., he has English tutors, Russian aristocratic blood, contempt for psychoanalysts, and the like), this book is clearly metafiction. The protagonist here, as with the protagonists in Transparent Things and Lolita, is fascinated by butterflies but not an entomologist of Nabokov's caliber. What makes LATH different from the work of other authors of metafiction's alluringly magical, "self"-indulgent mode, depends on the previous richness Nabokov has built up in his fictions which, from the Russian-drafted Gift to Humbert Humbert in Lolita, *already* deal with a protagonist much like the author. Thus the slippage here is not dual, between the author and his protagonist, but "trial" (as one might say), between the author, his protagonist, and the lives of his other protagonists, memorably Humbert Humbert of Lolita. Nabokov is having sly taunts: not only at America's image of him as author of Lolita, but at himself for being too quick to disidentify from that potent catcher of words and nymphs,
and finally perhas, at the ontological conceit of a fixed self that could be wholly either one or another. The protagonist here is a dialectical monster flitting between Nabokov and Humbert Humbert, a monster Nabokov himself capture's like a moth between LATH's pages. The last, and in some ways perhaps richest novel from a modern master.

Hugh Person returns to Switzerland in order to recapture those significant events in his life which happened or started in Switzerland. Person's past is a difficult one - returning stimulates uncomfortable memories (by this method, Nabokov reveals Person's story to the reader).

I thought that this novella was essentially an exploration of how memory can be invoked by both places and inanimate objects, and how unreliable our memories can be: we tend to elaborate our recollection of past times, actuality and our recall drift apart. It's often a shock when we find things are not quite as we remember them, when we cannot quite recreate what we imagine the past to have been like.

A short, yet interesting novella, reminiscent of Nabokov's earlier works.

Ok, it's not one of those change your life books like Ada or Lolita, but frankly, if you're considering reading Transparent Things, you've already read those anyway. If you've been burned before by Nabokov, you can trust this one, and better yet, it's 100 pages, so what's the risk? A good rule of thumb is that anything after Lolita is worth the time. Anything before is hit and miss.

Another nice thing is that this is a follow up to Ada and Nabokov's still cranking. There's new philosophical and stylistic ground covered, and one would have thought that there wasn't anything else to cover after the big A. It isn't another love story for the ages, but it's well crafted and entertaining. Oh, and this, unlike most Nabokov doesn't leave you with that, good lord he's a conceited (expletive) feeling.

If it’s true that the main reason Nabokov wrote ...“Lolita” was so its earnings would finance his more obscure efforts, I can’t but applaud his move. Simply referring to it as a novel does no justice to “Transparent Things.” The base plot is an excellent, witty representation of 1970s middle-class American culture, but Nabokov uses “the novel” to construct what I could best describe as a multidimensional, interactive game. Nabokov’s subject, Hugh Person, suddenly becomes YOU! The past, in the novel, is as open to reinterpretation as the future. What's most important, of course, is the now. Nabokov has designed such a cool game—he makes you want to play again and again. If I were ever asked to describe “post-modern” (a term I’m not too keen with), “Transparent Things” would be the perfect example.

I suppose there is a plot somewhere in this book, but it's lost amid the frequent changes of narrative style (first person, third person, then back-and-forth between the two) and the long descriptive sections. OK, there must be a lot to say about reading a book for the sheer enjoyment of the prose, as so many readers seem to respond positively to it. But it's never really attracted me: I find it's like running a marathon, but with no sense of achievement at the end. If you like to read books for the sheer challenge of it, then "The Gift" should be what you need. If you read for a sense of enjoyment based both upon style and plot content, beware.

This is not only one of the best Kunstelesromans (portraits of an artist) in modern literature, but also one of the finest investigations of the relationship between the Writer, the tradition which precedes and permeates his existence, and his inevitable heady relationship with the reader. Even though, I admit to be an ardent Nabokov enthusiast, I must also strongly aver, being foremost an individually opionioned reader, that some of this book's earlier criticism has been unjust. Yes, this book is a weighty one; I wouldn't recommend this to somebody who wants the story to unfold itself in front of their uninvolved imagination. But this book is about art and it is about love, two very wieghty subjects that deserve ample representation, and it's not for those looking for quick stimulation. This is not bloody Finnegan's Wake though, and it's certainly not some impentrable beast. Like a lot of Nabokov's work this novel encapsulates the intertwining and co-existence of many undulating experiences, some of which flicker and are gone, others which reside as undercurrents until they finally emerge; the colourful nuances which imbed each and every scene are brilliant and plentiful, portrayed to the best of Nabokov's ability at the time. These spiralling experiences are what make up the surface of the novel (far better than Mrs. Woolf); there are absolutely no plot devices to sink the teeth of an impatient psyche into. Fyodor, can at times, come off as a bit of a self-centred fop, but his eventual transcendence (into an artist), and the substantial world that relentlessly invades his growth are what should be concentrated upon. Many have kicked up a fuss over the Chernechevski bio that takes up the large second-to-last chapter of the novel, but this is a fundamental bridge which is indelible to an understanding of the growth of Fyodor. Nabokov doesn't just parade around the writer celebrating him as great, he shows us HOW and WHY. In the 'Chernechevski' chapter we discover Fyoder's utilisation of the constraints of a preconceived story and his subsequent command to bend those malleable devices into something new and part of himself. This chapter is the product of Fyodor's emergence as an artist and The Gift would have been worthy of note if this aspect was the only facet of its ultimate success. But at the centre of this novel there lies a romantic heart, that of the relationship between Fyodor and Zina (not to be mistaken for that of Vladimir and Vera, a much different affair), and this is the perfect linear wave to ride from Fyodor's initial confusion and uncertain melancholy all the way through to his subsequent trancendence (it may be useful to bare that last word in mind). In my opinion, this novel is far more successful than Joyce's 'Portrait' (and no more unfriendly) and why The Gift is not as championed as the former is illusory. This book takes patience and an interest in the art-form to wholly appreciate (for an example of such an involved reader, see Zina); this would be my only preface for such a truly REAL novel.

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.

My English not being my mother language has attracted me to Nabokov. And I admire him enourmously.But this novel was almost a disappointment, because, though it is so good at times, the almost plotless tale reaches a climax of the futile and bore when (we are already somewhere in the middle of the book)he narrator, who is by then in search of a lady, indulges in a series of inane dialogues whose aim eluded me. And the eighteenth chapter is wonderful, though I disliked also the final chapters, this simulacrum of impetus and parody of revelation on the very point of dying.

Nabokov intension, until he discovered for himself the wonderful world of pop-culture (cf. Lolita and Ada), was really to describe truth and beauty (see 'Luzhin's defense', 'Gift' etc.) in the tradition of the Old World, and play less with cheep riddles and collective phobias. His dealing with the issue of death, as in 'Ultima Thule' etc., appears also here; the last book written by Knight is, however, written about in a pale and uninspiring way (Nabokov could not make his vision clear?), and, surprisingly for Nabokov, is not free of commonplaces and dejavous. All in all the book is original and interesting, as nearly everything Nabokov wrote. And, by the way, the treatment of the relation narrator-genius (commonplace in itself, unfortunately) looks better than in Mann's Doctor Faustus, where it is taken quite heavily (one does not see the traces of the hammer blows).

Side remark: the stars practice is really annoying: isn't there a way to write about books without grading them?

Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps my very favorite author, and so I approached this work withthe mindset of "it must be at least good." It is. It contains the subtlety and puzzling qualities and droll humor of his great works and still manages to work in its own little bit of beauty. It also has its duller stretches, it lacks a real point, and it is more than vaguely pretentious, but nothing unforgivable. As his first full-length work in English, perhaps it should be treated more as an experiment in compositional workability than anything else.
The relative ease of reading this as compared to Nabokov's best, like 'Pale Fire' and 'Lolita,' may make it a good introduction to novices.

Vladimir Nabokov is one of the great authors of the 20th century, both as a craftsman and stylist in the novel form. He even succeed in grand poetry (Pale Fire), so one would think that his literal translation of Oneigin would be a welcome publication. It's not. First, Nabokov strips Onegin of all poetics, which he admits is his intent. He believes the poem is better understood from a transliteral (almost interlinear) reading than from a poetic reconstruction. This attempt may please, and I stress "may," those who, unfamiliar with Russian, and who want such a bland diet of lackluster prose. But there are so many excellent translations of Onegin that are beautiful and captivating in themselves, I'm not sure there's much need for such a literal, word-for-word, transcription. Perhaps this book belongs on the shelf along with other translations of Onegin, but it's not one I'll return to in the near future.

I'm a Russian Language and Literature major in Yonsei Univ. in Korea. Having lived in Moscow for around 3 years, I'd heard there a lot about Pushkin and read many of his famous works. The most prestigious of his, however, must be "Onegin." It's a great mixture of verse and prose in its form. If possible, try to read this in Russian, as well. This long poetical prose was written for 8 years and the ending rhyme perfectly matches for the entire line until the very end. Compared to others, it is definitely a conspicuous and brilliant one. "Onegin" can be the author himself or yourself. The love between Onegin and TaTyana is neither the cheap kind of love that often appears in any books nor the tragic one that is intended to squeze your tears. As a literature, this book covers not only love between passionate youth, but also a large range of literary works in it, which can tell us about the contemporary literature current and its atmosphere. Calling Onegin "My friend", Pushkin, the author, shows the probability and likelihood of the work. Finally, I'm just sorry that the title has been changed into English. The original name must be "Yevgeni Onegin(¬¦¬Ó¬Ô¬Ö¬ß¬Ú¬Û ¬°¬ß¬Ö¬Ô¬Ú¬ß)." If you are a literature major or intersted in it, I'd like to recommand you read this. You can't help but loving the two lovers and may reread it, especially the two correspondences through a long period of time. Only with readng this book, you'll also learn a huge area of the contemporary literature of the 19th century from the books mentioned in "Onegin" that take part as its subtext. Enjoy yourself!

i like this book. it helps a lot. and looks good on the shelf to boot.

Out of print? Out of print??? I assume that Vintage are waiting for the movie tie-in edition, or something. It's in print in my country, anyway, under its proper title "The Luzhin Defence".

This is, as Brian Boyd says in his excellent Nabokov biography, its author's first masterpiece. I am an execrable chess player, but I know just about enough about the game (and am obsessive enough about various other things) to find its shambling, mumbling hero one of my favourite characters in the Nabokov oeuvre. I've always liked Nabokov's less clubbable heroes - although I recognise that "The Gift" is a greater novel, I can get a bit tired of Fyodor's limitless resourcefulness and poise. (I got impatient with "Ada" for much the same reason.) The unsocial and inarticulate Luzhin is more my kind of character. Surely John Turturro was born to play this character, even if the movie isn't that great.

John Updike, in his afterword, gets a bit sniffy about the meticulous patterning of the book, but I think he fails to appreciate the scope and grip of Luzhin's insanity. This is one of the saddest books Nabokov ever wrote, but also one of the most openly compassionate. Later on, there were more intricate and more skilful games being played with our need to (dodgy word coming) "empathise" with a central character, but "The Luzhin Defence" is still the first book Nabokov wrote that has the mark of the master.

This is Nabakov's third novel, a moving and bleak picture of a self-obsessed man who decides to obsess on anything but himself. It is wonderfully written, beautiful, an obvious indication of just how marvelous a prose stylist Vladimir was, but I sometimes found myself wondering if I really cared. Of course, I find chess to be terribly dull (perhaps my own lack of ability at the game having something to do with this), but that didn't stop me from admiring the compelling structure of the narrative--the world reduced to a chess board and the people taking on the individual characteristics (including the methods of movement) of the various pieces.

I'm sticking with Nabakov, continuing on, hoping that he was more than just a nifty stylist and eventually blossomed into that rarist treat: A stylish author who understands how to tell an engaging story.

I think it's a shame the 'Collected Stories', with its dull chronological order and unimaginative completeness, has come to supersede the four volumes specially prepared by Nabokov in the 1970s, which were, as his son and co-translator Dmitri says, 'painstakingly assorted and orchestrated by Nabokov using various criteria - theme, period, atmosphere, uniformity and variety'. the stories were translated with these volumes in mind, and to break up their order is to risk destroying Nabokov's carefully calculated voice.

The stories in 'Details of a Sunset', written between 1924 and 1935, mostly centre on the Russian emigre experience in Berlin Nabokov himself was living, as he struggled to write his first novels. It is a world of pale, starving writers, small, shabby rooms, dark, streetlamp-lit streets, jerky trams; a world in which present love affairs are bleak and deadly, and ideal ones are ruptured by misunderstanding or death; where reunions with lost family members are painfully inopportune.

this could all sound oppressively glum; what makes these stories sparkle is Nabokov's aggressively alert consciousness, his ability to literally light up the dreary by illuminating tiny, irrelevant details that combine to create magical tableaux - a focus on the material that produces an exciting spiritual rush.

Two stories here, 'A Bad Day' and 'Orache', would be later reworked in Nabokov's miraculous memoir 'Speak, Memory', and already the Russian's charged nostalgia exerts a magnetic pull. 'A Busy Man' is a little masterpiece about a hack writer who half-recollects the recollection of a childhood dream that may or may not have foretold his death on his 33rd birthday; 'A slice of life' is a sordid fait diver shot through with sympathy (and a rare excursion by the author into female first person narrative). 'A Guide to Berlin' is possibly the best story he wrote, a cartography not of famous landmarks, but the more hauntingly insistent humdrum - pipes waiting by the road to be dug in; dancing in a cafe; a huge tear on an actress' face in the cinema.

For anyone, like me, more familiar with Nabokov's more famous English work (in my case Bend Sinister, Lolita, Pale Fire), the first Russian stories in this collection might come as something of a shock. Inevitably, being translated, they lose what was presumably their magic in Russian; and as the joy of Nabokov is language (what he does with it; how he expresses meaning through his manipulation of it, rather than ideas or narrative; how he is its most beautiful exponent of the century), one is left with a feeling of frustration adn dissatisfaction. There is little of the callous burlesque which invade his most delicate artifacts. 'The Aurelian' could almost have been written by Simenon. Others have the nostalgic melancholy of Turgenev. This is all very nice, but it's not Nabokov.

And yet, it is. 'Cloud, Castle, Lake', for example, combines the familiar Nabokovian disjunction between elegance of style and content of the most horrific viciousness. There is a definite increase in pleasure when one gets to the English stories - the tone, created through language, in unmistakably Nab - narrators, resembling Nabokov in suavity, taste and intelligence, are actually feckless idiots, with their creator smiling behind them.

There is, though, very little to smile about in these stories. Spanning (in composition)the period of Stalinism, Nazism, World War II and McCarthy era USA, they detail the complete derailment of the Enlightenment project in our century. Each time rationality, the power of the intellect or the artist is asserted, it is always denied by exile, totalitarianism, madness, deformity, conformity, self-destructive urges, unknowable terrors, but most importantly, by knowledge of the deception inherent in writing. Each story begins with an assertion, and the confident possibility of giving expression to the world, and ends with these values rigorously distorted, fragmented, smashed and broken by that world.

And yet it is only through the mind that we can escape this evil, through nostalgia, recreation, possibility, artistry, transcendence. 'Lance' is an extraordinary, baffling, ambivalent parable highlighting this. Is its vision of the sublime delusive? Does this matter if we can fumble towards imagining it?

Almost every character in these stories languishes in some kind of prison, trying to escape, seek epiphany in some way connected with the mind, whether it's a simple, sensual appreciation of beauty (a fluttering butterfly; a reflection of a cloud on a lake), or a quiet kindness to someone else, helping us escape our crushing solipsism. 'Signs and Symbols' is the key story, its deceptive simplicity masking untold anguish.

I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the astonishment of watching Nabokov in full flight, but there is so much wealth in these stories, which require untold rereading - not just to extract meaning, but to savour again, and again, their remarkable beauty, their deadpan comedy, their impotent apprehension of terror and brutality (although there is a persistant failure in the portrayal of women) - to remind us why Nabokov is the century's greateat.