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 migr. 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research on Nabokov's life and art, as he dates and describes the composition of all Nabokov's works, published and unpublished.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.
Brian Boyd is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of the prize-winning Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton 1990), Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton 1991), and Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness. Referred to in a recent journal as "the great man of Nabokov studies," he has also edited Nabokov's English novels and autobiography for the Library of America and Nabokov's Butterflies for Beacon Press.
对《纳博科夫传》精装版新书活动的收集和整理,仅供学习交流,勿作商业用途 来自澎湃 澎湃新闻记者 罗昕 [《纳博科夫传》:他承诺要给读者幸福] 纳博科夫相信,每个个体,每个生灵,每部真正伟大的文学作品,都是一个世界。 今年是弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫诞辰一百二十周年,广...
评分纳博科夫是我最喜爱的作家之一,看学者如何分析解读他,自然有益有趣。要真正了解和欣赏一位外国作家,当然最好是读外语原文。但是,中文本身却是那么美妙的一种“图画”文字,能够瞬间传达出作者想要表达的意象、色彩和场景,哪怕是翻译作品,也同样如此。遇上一位好译者,通...
评分对《纳博科夫传》精装版新书活动的收集和整理 转自文汇独家 作者:许旸 编辑:许旸 责任编辑:范昕 [面对“毒舌难搞”的大作家,这位传记作者凭什么让人放下心防] “每个个体,每个生灵,每部真正伟大的文学作品,都是一个世界。”著名作家纳博科夫的这句话道出一个秘密:具有...
评分很多作家都不喜欢别人为他作传。奥威尔就在遗嘱中反对其他人为他立传,那是出于一种谨小慎微的自卑感,他总认为自己的一生是一连串失败经历的组合体,不值得后来者书写。而托尔斯泰算是另一个极端例子,他生前就很讨厌别人为他作传,那是一种渗透在骨子里的傲慢,他认为传记作...
评分很多作家都不喜欢别人为他作传。奥威尔就在遗嘱中反对其他人为他立传,那是出于一种谨小慎微的自卑感,他总认为自己的一生是一连串失败经历的组合体,不值得后来者书写。而托尔斯泰算是另一个极端例子,他生前就很讨厌别人为他作传,那是一种渗透在骨子里的傲慢,他认为传记作...