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Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov publisher: Querido, Amsterdam, 1962 refered to by: The Egyptologist Arthur Phillips Fictions Jorges Luis Borges Marcovaldo: or, The Seasons in the City Italo Calvino Virtuoso, The Margriet de Moor
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summary: A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor. |
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| ON NABOKOV'S BOOKSHELF Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 1605 / 1615 A comic study of delusion and its consequences; Don Quixote, the old gentleman of La Mancha, takes to the road in search of adventure and remains undaunted in the face of repeated disaster. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne, 1759-1767 Part novel, part digression, this gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters. Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol, 1842 In this quintessentially Russian novel, the reader follows Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned con-man, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise. Bleak House Charles Dickens, 1852-1853 A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens' s most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums. Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life Gustave Flaubert, 1857 Emma Bovary, a young country doctor' s wife, seeks escape from the boredom of her existence in love affairs and romantic yearnings, but is doomed to disillusionment. Swann's Way Marcel Proust, 1913 Volume I of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. The narrator interrupts reminiscences about his childhood spent in late-nineteenth-century France to recall the hopeless love affair that a friend of the family carries on with young Odette de Crecy. The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka, 1915 'published in Kafka's lifetime' A man awakens up one morning to find himself transformed into an enormous insect. Ulysses James Joyce, 1922 Stylistically varied Homer-parody about the Dublin everyman Leopold Bloom, who emerges as surrogate father to Stephen Dedalus on the day his wife Molly sleeps with another man. Eugene Onegin Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, 1823-1831 Eugene Onegin, an aristocrat, much like Pushkin and his peers in his attitude and habits, is bored. He visits the countryside where the young and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him. In a touching letter she confesses her love but is cruelly rejected. Years later, it is Onegin's turn to be rejected by Tatyana. | BOOKS BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV: Lolita 1955 'in English' The story of Humbert Humbert and his obsession with 12-year-old Dolores Haze. Determined to possess his 'Lolita' both carnally and artistically, Humbert embarks on a disastrous courtship that can only end in tragedy. | WHAT TO READ AFTER LOLITA? 'FILLES FATALES' Naomi Junichiro Tanizaki, 1925 The Westernization of a Japanese bar girl spells trouble for her rather masochistic husband. The Happy Hunting Grounds Nanne Tepper, 1995 Incest, madness & romance in the peat. Steeped in an unearthly and unsettling fenland landscape, relationships like that between Victor and his teen sister tend to mist up the perspectives of the 'normal'. Emilio's Carnival, or 'Senilità' Italo Svevo, 1898 The amorous entanglement of Emilio, a failed writer already old at thirty-five, and Angiolina, a seductively beautiful but promiscuous young woman. (Originally translated under the title A Man Grows Older.) Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote, 1958/ 1961 Holly Golightly is generally up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She hasn't got a past. She doesn't want to belong to anything or anyone, not even to her one-eyed rag-bag pirate of a cat. One day Holly might find somewhere she belongs. EUROPE VS. AMERICA America Franz Kafka, 1927P Presents the story of Karl Rossman who, after an embarrassing sexual misadventure with a servant girl, is banished to America by his parents. Expected to redeem himself in the magical land of opportunity, he instead gets swept up in a whirlwind of strange escapades and dizzying adventures. [Alfa Amerika] Jan van Loy, 2005 A four-part novel about Europeans with American dreams of fame, fortune, and ecstasy. The Europeans Henry James, 1878 Eugenia, an American expatriate brought up in Europe, arrives in rural New England with her charming brother Felix, hoping to find a wealthy second husband after the collapse of her marriage to a German prince. The Loved One Evelyn Waugh, 1927 One of Waugh's less well known works, The Loved One is a black romp through the strange world of California's funeral parlors. Changing Places David Lodge, 1975 The plate-glass, concrete jungle of Euphoria State University, USA, and the damp red-brick University of Rummidge have an annual exchange scheme. Normally the exchange passes without comment. But when Philip Swallow swaps with Professor Zapp the fates play a hand. THE GAME OF LITERATURE Fictions Jorges Luis Borges, 1935/ 1944 / 1949 This is a collection of Borges's fiction, translated and gathered into a single volume. From his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through the influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, to his final work from the 1980s, Shakespeare Memory. Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes, 1984 A retired English doctor, in solitary widowhood, makes a pilgrimage through the life and art of Gustave Flaubert, whose work he has always venerated. As he meditates on his passion, he reveals as much about himself as he uncovers about Flaubert. The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon, 1966 A surreal comedy satirizing Californian life. Oedipa Maas, a recent heiress, pursues enquiries into the nature of her inheritance and the motivation of her dead lover and is led on an ambiguous trail of clues. [Rachels rokje] Charlotte Mutsaers, 1994 A young girl in a world of language and associations. |
| Laughter in the Dark 1933 A wealthy man in early twentieth-century Berlin is attracted to a lovely young girl and abandons his wife and home to begin a disastrous and unrequited love affair. | ||
| Despair 1934 In this tale, Hermann, a German chocolate manufacturer, stumbles across a man he believes to be his double and starts plotting to turn this accidental encounter to his advantage. | ||
| The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 1941 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story - subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax - about the mysterious life of a famous writer. | ||
| Pnin 1957 Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched on a college campus in the fast beating heart of the USA. In a series of funny and sad misunderstandings, Pnin does halting battle with American life and language. | ||
| Pale Fire 1962 A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor. | ||
| Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle 1969 / 1990 (reissue edition) Psychological novel about an incestuous relationship in a decadent family. | ||
| The Luzhin Defence 1930 One of the major novels by Vladimir Nabokov, originally entitled 'The Defense'. The novel features a chess-playing genius Luzhin who discovers his gift in boyhood, rising to the rank of Grandmaster. | ||
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