The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

I've read most of the Russian writers, but simply couldn't get into Nabokov. I can tell there is some depth I'm not grasping, but reading shouldn't be as much work as required in every one of his stories. In other cases, I felt like the potential impact fell flat, such as in A Matter of Chance, where the ending came on so quickly that it was anti-climatic compared to the build up up to it. I turned from his earlier stories, to one of his later and most renowned works, The Vane Sisters. That one seemed more developed but still didn't resonate with me. I guess I'm not motivated by stories that have more nuance than dynamic plot or character development.

I'm a bit torn reviewing this book. On one hand it has some very good short stories, and a few masterpieces (Signs and Symbols, Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster, and The Vane Sisters are my favourites).

On the other hand, this collection includes all of Nabokov's stories, including far too many that are frankly bad. He is often praised as a stylist, and he might well be, but these stories are usually sterile, gimmicky, cold, and pretentious. Their dialogue is terrible. And those that feel autobiographical are uncomfortably biased and deluded.

In his stories, Vladimir Nabokov so perfectly captures a character, or a setting, or an emotion, that I feel that the character is real, the setting surrounds me, and the emotion is my own.

His writing in these stories is so well done that I, a very amateur writer, feel the urge to try my hand at capturing the images around me, a task I will surely fail because I know I will never even remotely measure up to Nabokov’s incredible talent.

The unfortunate aspect of reading more than 60 of Nabokov’s short stories in one month is that the characters he so adroitly creates, the settings he so carefully draws, and the feelings he so perfectly captures are, for the most part, miserable, gloomy, and ultimately depressing. Also, some of his show more stories have fantastical elements that failed to resonate with me, and most dwell on negative aspects of human nature - subjects that weren’t pleasant for reading in bulk.

But I feel that the overall quality of Vladimir Nabokov’s writing is so extraordinary that he should be read simply for the marvelous experience that comes from reading his words, even if the reader doesn’t necessarily consider the negative underlying themes amazing.

More detailed review on my blog show less

"When you laugh, I want to transform the entire world so it will mirror you." Nabokov is a master craftsman...[in progress]

I love love love love love love these stories. Gems, each and every one. Praise be to Nabokov

"Spring in Fialta," "Signs and Symbols," "Cloud, Castle, Lake," "The Vane Sisters" -- to my mind, some of the greatest stories ever written. My review:

http://www.scpronet.com/point/9602/s12.html

I don't know what happened, though the decrepitude of my iPod might explain it (in the past four years it twice has resurrected itself from the Sad Mac Face). I was listening to a story about White Russian emigr�À_•À_s in Berlin keeping a GPU agent captive and then all of a sudden I was listening to a love story with Bach and some rain with no jump in elapsed time. I'll pause this for a bit and come back to it later.