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Re: READING SUGGESTIONS (fwd)
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From: TENTENDER@aol.com
Nor can I resist plugging a favorite of mine, and one often overlooked in the
early stages of fascination with VN. Probably because one wants to read the
novels that are written directly in English, one waits too long to read THE
GIFT, a more ambitious and more fully realized novel than VN's first efforts
in English. It is, IMhO, VN's most extravagantly and freely inventive novel
(at least as it reads in Michael Scammell's superb English version [having
myself no Russian for comparison] -- in collaboration, of course, with the
master himself). Let me say it: there is no Nabokov novel I treasure more than
THE GIFT.
Another great source of both spinal chills and (in the right mood) heartfelt
tears -- and, again, underestimated -- is BEND SINISTER -- fascinating, too,
to the amateur linguist in us all (at least those of us who are not
professional linguists!).
For sheer fun (and considerably fewer mental demands), one cannot beat the
letters: both the Nabokov-Wilson ones and the Selected.
Of course, no quarrel with PNIN -- in fact, always my first recommendation to
potential initiates. In any case, how to choose among the most enjoyable books
ever written? One ends up reading them all, more than once -- in fact, as
often as possible.
Christopher Berg
Tentender@aol.com
Nor can I resist plugging a favorite of mine, and one often overlooked in the
early stages of fascination with VN. Probably because one wants to read the
novels that are written directly in English, one waits too long to read THE
GIFT, a more ambitious and more fully realized novel than VN's first efforts
in English. It is, IMhO, VN's most extravagantly and freely inventive novel
(at least as it reads in Michael Scammell's superb English version [having
myself no Russian for comparison] -- in collaboration, of course, with the
master himself). Let me say it: there is no Nabokov novel I treasure more than
THE GIFT.
Another great source of both spinal chills and (in the right mood) heartfelt
tears -- and, again, underestimated -- is BEND SINISTER -- fascinating, too,
to the amateur linguist in us all (at least those of us who are not
professional linguists!).
For sheer fun (and considerably fewer mental demands), one cannot beat the
letters: both the Nabokov-Wilson ones and the Selected.
Of course, no quarrel with PNIN -- in fact, always my first recommendation to
potential initiates. In any case, how to choose among the most enjoyable books
ever written? One ends up reading them all, more than once -- in fact, as
often as possible.
Christopher Berg
Tentender@aol.com