Despair by Vladimir Nabokov (English) Paperback Book

Description: Despair by Vladimir Nabokov Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening split in Hermanns nature. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description This dark satire follows the egotistical Hermann Hermann, a murderer who thinks himself an artistSelf-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening split in Hermanns nature. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov takes us into a deranged world, one full of an impudent, startling humour, dominated by the egotistical and scornful figure of a murderer who thinks himself an artist. Author Biography Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), born in St Petersburg, exiled in Cambridge, Berlin, and Paris, became the greatest Russian writer of the first half of the twentieth century. Fleeing to the US with his family in 1940, he then became the greatest writer in English of the second half of the century, and even Gods own novelist (William Deresiewicz). He lived in Europe from 1959 onwards, and died in Montreux, Switzerland. All his major works - novels, stories, an autobiography, poems, plays, lectures, essays and reviews - are published in Penguin Modern Classics. Kirkus US Review Despair is one of Nabokovs Russian language novels now appearing here thirty years after At was written in the Germany of the 30s - of which The Gift has been isolated by many critics as the connoisseurs choice. This perhaps as a story per se will make a stronger appeal to the general reader, even though it lacks the brilliant imaginative effects of which Nabokov is capable, or even the architectural perfection of The Defense. Its the story of a man who plans and executes his own murder - and once again obsession is as engrained here as it is in many of his stronger books. Hermann is, when first self-introduced, an inspired liar, aimless to begin with, addictive as he proceeds. He is also a dilettante perfectionist with pretensions of genius which he will achieve through his crime or perhaps its account thereof, this story. In "silly" stage asides, droll fatuities, wordplay, he records his meeting with the man who As his exact likeness and whom he eventually will kill. He gets rid of the artist, his "bird-witted" wife Lydias housepet, persuades Lydia and then the victim to go along with him. The despair - that is the supreme irony. But before the story ends on that note, there have been a great many sardonic subtleties along with the interior echoes, vagaries, illusions of a mind precariously poised between reality and disassociation. Occasionally there is a matchless line - "A cloud every now and then palmed the sun which reappeared like a conjurers coin." But on the whole, the tone As more playful than any of Nabokovs books, classing it as an entertainment. Nonetheless, Nabokov is one of the incomparable storytellers and stylists of our time who may outlive it. (Kirkus Reviews) Details ISBN014118454X Author Vladimir Nabokov Pages 176 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd Year 2000 ISBN-10 014118454X ISBN-13 9780141184548 Format Paperback Publication Date 2000-11-30 Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom Translated from Russian Birth 1899 Death 1977 Media Book Short Title DESPAIR Language English Residence St. Petersburg, RUR DEWEY 813.54 Imprint Penguin Classics UK Release Date 2000-11-30 Series Penguin Modern Classics Alternative 9780141911403 Audience General NZ Release Date 2001-01-01 AU Release Date 2001-01-01 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:2251282;

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