Volume 7, Number 7 · November 3, 1966
Nabokov's Way
By D.J. Enright
The Waltz Invention
by Vladimir Nabokov
Phaedra, 111 pp., $4.95
The Eye
by Vladimir Nabakov
Phaedra, 114 pp., $4.50
Despair
by Vladimir Nabokov
Putnam, 222 pp., $5.00
Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited
by Vladimir Nabokov
Patnam, 320 pp., $6.75
Escape Into Aesthetics: The Art of Vladimir Nabokov
by Page Stegner
Dial, 141 pp., $4.50
Vladimir Nabokov has written quite a lot about Vladimir Nabokov, and now Page Stegner has written about him too. It must be said that Mr. Stegner's approach is a good deal less sophisticated than Nabokov's. For one thing, in a slightly uneasy way Mr. Stegner offers to justify Nabokov, to show that he possesses not only a brilliant style but also (though he 'tries to obfuscate that emotion by means of a brilliant style') a deeply compassionate nature. In a somewhat similar spirit Mr. Stegner presents Humbert Humbert as a poor, compassion-worthy gentleman who was simply trying to recover his childhood by peeking at young girls. Unhappily he was seduced by Lolita, which spoiled everything. For Humbert, at least, though not for those readers 'who are able to trancend their socially conditioned response to sexual perversion.'
Review, 3449 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |