Volume 39, Number 3 · January 30, 1992
The Wizard of Lake Cayuga
By Robert M. Adams
Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
by Brian Boyd
Princeton University Press, 783 pp., $35.00
Outsize literary biographies have been appearing for a long time now; they used to carry a rider like 'The Life of So-and-So Narrated in Connection with the History of His Times,' which allowed ample space for divagation. Nowadays the bare bones of a biography are likely to be covered with critical analysis. Brian Boyd in his immense new biography of Vladimir Nabokov has struck a balance, emphasizing the critical without occluding the historical circumstances, of which Nabokov himself was sometimes disdainful. The biographer has had a spacious and complex career to deal with; his two volumes are packed full of incidents and insights, enough to provide a feast for the leisurely, inquisitive reader.
Review, 3947 words
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