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As intricate as a house of mirrors, Nabokov's last novel is an ironic play on the Janus-like relationship between fiction and reality. It is the autobiography of the eminent Russian-American author Vadim Vadimovich N. (b. 1899), whose life bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, though the two are not to be confused (?). Focusing on the central figures of his life -- his four wives, his books, and his muse, Dementia -- the book leads us to suspect that the fictions Vadim has created as an author have crossed the line between his life's work and his life itself, as the worlds of reality and literary invention grow increasingly indistinguishable. One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. "One of the greatest masters of prose since Conrad." -- Harper's… (more)
User reviews
The conceit of the novel -- that it is the autobiography of an author whose works end up
VV's story is surprisingly compelling, tracing a lifetime of assorted writings and loves, and as the novel progresses, and more obvious gestures are made towards Nabokov's works, the mental challenge of separating the real from the fictional (or even just determining which is which) becomes part of the fun. The long sequence regarding VV's relationship with his daughter Bel, and her inspiration for his novel A Kingdom by the Sea is exceptionally inspired.
By the end, even though the reader may need to look the text over a few times to figure out what is actually happening, the challenge of the text has been so well wrought-out that it feels less like undue frustration or a cheater's way out than it does the work of a master manipulating his readers in specific, calculated ways.
The benefits of this novel increase exponentially if you've read lots of Nabokov before this, but even without that knowledge, this is a multilayered, metaphysical novel filled with erudition, humor, and narrative tricks to savor.
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