Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years / Brian Boyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boyd, Brian, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

Authors, Russian--20th century--Biography.

Authors, Russian.

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (649 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This first major critical biography of Vladimir Nabokov, one of the greatest of twentieth-century writers, finally allows us full access to the dramatic details of his life and the depths of his art. An intensely private man, Nabokov was uprooted first by the Russian Revolution and then by World War II. Transformed into a permanent wanderer, he did not achieve fame until late in life, with the success of Lolita. In this first of two volumes, Brian Boyd vividly describes the liberal milieu of the aristocratic Nabokovs, their escape from Russia, Nabokov's education at Cambridge, and the murder of his father in Berlin. Boyd then turns to the years that Nabokov spent, impoverished, in Germany and France, until the coming of Hitler forced him to flee, with wife and son, to the United States. This volume stands on its own as a fascinating exploration of Nabokov's Russian years and Russian worlds, prerevolutionary and émigré. In the course of his ten years' work on the biography, Boyd traveled along Nabokov's trail everywhere from Yalta to Palo Alto. The only scholar to have had free access to the Nabokov archives in Montreux and the Library of Congress, he also interviewed at length Nabokov's family and scores of his friends and associates. For the general reader, Boyd offers an introduction to Nabokov the man, his works, and his world. For the specialist, he provides a basis for all future research on Nabokov's life and art, as he dates and describes the composition of all Nabokov's works, published and unpublished. Boyd investigates Nabokov's relation to and his independence from his time, examines the special structures of his mind and thought, and explains the relations between his philosophy and his innovations of literary strategy and style. At the same time he provides succinct introductions to all the fiction, dramas, memoirs, and major verse; presents detailed analyses of the major books that break new ground for the scholar, while providing easy paths into the works for other readers; and shows the relationship between Nabokov's life and the themes and subjects of his art.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Note on Dates

Introduction

PART Is RUSSIA

1. Liberal Strains: The Pattern of the Past

2. A World Awakening: St. Petersburg, 1899-1904

3. First Revolution and First Duma: St. Petersburg, 1904-1906

4. Butterflies: St. Petersburg, 1906-1910

5. School: St. Petersburg, 1911-1914

6. Lover and Poet: Petrograd, 1914-1917

7. Foretaste of Exile: Crimea, 1917-1919

PART II: EUROPE

8. Becoming Sirin: Cambridge, 1919-1922

9. Regrouping: Berlin, 1922-1923

10. Enter the Muse: Berlin, 1923-1925

11. Scenes from Emigré Life: Berlin, 1925-1926

12. Ideas Away: Berlin, 1927-1929

13. Nabokov the Writer

14. The Defense (Zashchita Luzhina)

15. Negative and Positive: Berlin, 1929-1930

16. Bright Desk, Dark World: Berlin, 1930-1932

17. Distant Prospects: Berlin, 1932-1934

18. Translation and Transformation: Berlin, 1934-1937

19. On the Move: France, 1937

20. The Gift (Dar)

21. Destitute: France, 1938-1939

22. Searching for an Exit: France, 1939-1940

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [533]-582) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9781400884025

1400884020

OCLC:

950466162