This early novel was written in 1935-37, mostly in Berlin. Despite
Nabokov's brief disclaiming preface (not about himself, but about
Russian literature), the book is about a Russian emigre in Berlin,
learning about writing and the writer's world and it is perhaps
closer to autobiography than any of the later novels. Young Fyodor,
in Berlin, examines his first published book of verse (his
side-memories are more brilliant); he meets other hopeful emigre
authors; he remembers his vanished father (a brilliant section);
and after experimenting with the styles of Gogol and Pushkin, he
finally publishes a brilliant, elliptic biography of another writer
(given in full) which receives mixed reviews. Meanwhile, in real
life, he is involved with eccentric people and in a halfhearted
affair. There are also his dreams and memories and this complex
mirror-relation between reality and the writer's
read-thought-borrowed world is so densely detailed and privately
seen that it is sometimes almost unreadable- a technical difficulty
Nabokov also solves in due course. The book is demanding, in its
private questioning and brilliant problem-solving and it is a
fascinating lesson in the truly staggering number of possible ways
of writing and seeing. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Gift is the phantasmal autobiography of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdynstev, a writer living in the closed world of Russian émigré intellectuals in Berlin shortly after the First World War. In this his last, and to many his greatest, Russian novel, Nabokov unfolds the story of a writer’s pursuit; a gorgeous tapestry of literature and Lepidoptera whose true hero is not Fyodor’s elusive, beloved Zina, but Russian prose and poetry itself.
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