Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years by Brian Boyd (PDF)

Description

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research on Nabokov’s life and art, as he dates and describes the composition of all Nabokov’s works, published and unpublished.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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I am about halfway through this book, and fully intend to pick it up in the future and finish it. The book is a challenging and highly informative read, and I am at a point where there is less of a focus on what his life was like in pre-Revolutionary Russia, a prime area of my interest, and is instead focusing more heavily on literary criticism, which at some points can be quite dense. Nabokov moved to Berlin after he left Russia, married a Jewish woman who became his life partner and the book is about to go into the Hitler years in Germany, the Nabokovs’ move to Paris (which Nabokov apparently hated), and their subsequent move to the US, just one step ahead of the Nazis.I think part of the reason I am taking a breather on the book is that Mr. Boyd makes it quite clear that Nabokov was virulently anti-gay, yet had no hesitation accepting an enormous inheritance from his mother’s gay brother (I would have to recalculate, but I think the sum was close to $35 million in today’s dollars plus a 2000 acre estate with mansion). The Nabokovs also had no hesitation accepting the help of Nabokov’s father’s gay brother in England as they lived hand to mouth after the Revolution, and Nabokov slept in the same bed with, and spent almost all of his time for a period with, a closet case. Yet, Nabokov’s parents fired a lesbian governess; the last disparaging conversation Nabokov had with his father about Nabokov’s own gay brother was the night before the father was killed,and throughout the period of his life when he had the opportunity, Nabokov made no effort to be close to his gay brother (the brother showed incredible bravery before he died in a concentration camp, while Nabokov was the toast of the American literary scene). Nabolov’s son, before he died, was also an insulting homophobe.I think another reason I have taken a break from this VERY well written biography is that the author makes no attempt to sugar coat Nabokov’s personality. Nabokov’s parents had 50 servants and it the author seems to convey that Nabokov thought he was a superior human being to those less fortunate (Nabobov had no problem with his parents’ instruction not to talk to the servants); Nabokov seemed to use women like objects before he found the love of his life, and purposely played with their emotions, in the process emotionally hurting the multiple women he had sex with before finding the love of his life. Nabokov’s enduring hobby was chasing down the most beautiful and rate butterflies he could find, killing them in a jar, then pinning them in an exhibition box.In sum, Boyd does an excellent job portraying Nabokov, his surroundings, and dealings with others and his inner thoughts. Its an excellent highly intelligent biography about a man I happened not to like after learning about him. I look forward to finishing the book, but do not know if I will buy the second volume about Nabokov’s life in the US, as it apparently focuses on close examination of Nabokov’s works which I have not read.

⭐Beautifully written, well researched and provides important information about Nabokov, Russia and Europe before and following the Russian civil war.

⭐Nabokov is one of those authors whose work you either get or don’t. His characters rarely display normal emotions, they have bizarre obsessions and ecstasies, and their situations and context are, well, strange. He is condemned as a pervert, revered as the rarest kind of literary genius, and respected as a lepidopterist. I love his work and have read about 3/4 of his output, starting with Lolita, one of the great 20C novels. For nearly 30 years, I have carried these massive volumes around and now, not wanting to lug them across the Atlantic again, I have decided to read them at last.This book offers a brilliant mix of literary criticism and biography, going over all Nabokov’s major works in the context of his life. Boyd looks for the sources of characters and situations, yet never crosses the line of psychoanalysing Nabokov, as Andrew Field notoriously did in his much less refined early scholarship. It is, in my view, just the right balance.It was a tumultuous period in Europe. After an idyllic aristocratic childhood in Russia, Nabokov first fled as a refugee during the Bolshevik Revolution. Then his father, a noted liberal politician, was murdered at a political gathering. Nabokov began his writing career as an emigree in Germany, writing in Russian, only to be endangered by the Nazi Regime, in no small part because his wife was Jewish. They fled as penniless refugees to the US on one of the last boats out of France. He then rebooted his career in English.As with the best criticism, Boyd’s analyses add to one’s perception of the works of art, even if you disagree with his interpretations. It does not lessen or take away enchantment from the works. Nabokov’s novels and scholarship are so quirky and complex, with multiple layers of culture and language, that I feel criticism is needed to appreciate and understand them. There are many things I now see more clearly because of Boyd’s efforts, which makes the book well worth the price of admission. Of course, descriptions of the works can be quite long and detailed, which marks this book as academic. The biggest novels in this volume are not among my favorites: Despair and The Defense didn’t do it for me and I could not get past the beginning of The Gift. I skipped over a lot of this.Boyd attempts to provide a philosophical interpretation of what Nabokov is trying to say and do. In a nutshell, he argues, Nabokov in all of his work is demonstrating that human consciousness can and should expand into a kind of ecstasy and wonder, which the introduction of detail would encourage and stimulate – rather than getting stuck in a “philistine” humdrum or normality or generalities. This may be true, but I did not think it a blinding insight, as Boyd seems to believe it is. I just like his books in all their vivid complexity, each revealing an alien landscape and mentality.Another problem I have with Boyd is that he is a scholarly nerd – he lives in books, much less in the real world. There is something rarified in his tone, assuming that the reader of Nabokov must see the work the way he does. Over and over, he informs us that something is the greatest ever done in its particular category. He also mimics Nabokov’s tone and style, sometimes with puns, other times with obscure references, a kind of joking pastiche. It gets tiresome.Boyd does cover Nabokov’s love of butterflies and moths in great detail. This was very fun for me, who was a child lepidopterist. It wasn’t just the beauty, Boyd informs us, but his acumen as a scientist and nature lover. He did research and wrote, attempting to refute the dogmatic application of Darwinian logic. This hearkens back to Nabokov’s happy childhood in the Vyra estate.With the overall tone of approval, I also think Boyd is a bit biased in Nabokov’s favor. He has a reputation of a nasty recluse, but in this book he is an expansive, kind, and social man. Boyd glosses over Nabokov’s mid-life crisis when he apparently indulged in promiscuity, humiliating his wife and nearly ending his marriage according to other accounts. Instead, he makes their marriage sound idyllic, which didn’t ring true to me.Aside from these criticisms, this is a very enjoyable read and has a great deal of literary insight to add. The writing is beautiful and clear, rarely repetitious, perhaps a masterpiece in its own right. Recommended warmly.

⭐This volume and its companion piece are excellent specimens of literary biography. I’ve read both through twice over the last 22 years. My only complaint is that the author’s approach compromises the thrill of discovery by providing in many cases what feels like a page-by-page synopsis of plot, characterization, style and technique. Some of the novels literally have entire paragraphs and pages (especially last and opening lines) reproduced in the biography verbatim—then more lines and paragraphs are cited accompanied by explanations of exactly what each character is doing and thinking in that scene and what the same characters will do and think later on in the story. If one’s never read these stories before, the flash and bang of Nabokov’s style loses something if approached after reading the biography, because it feels like the magician’s secret has been revealed.

⭐Pretty boring and too much about novels.

⭐I like

⭐A though, but rather toadyish review of the great man’s life. Brian Boyd gives the impression he sold his soul to the Nabokov estate to gain access to his private papers. I wont bother with the American leg. If anything it ruined my enjoyment of Nabokov’s work. Boyd seems oblivious to how priggish VN comes across.

⭐Finally i received the Brian Boyd’s book. Due to COVID-19 i had to wait a little bit. The book is in perfect conditions, wonderful. Thank you so much, Bear Book Sales.

⭐Una fortuna trovare questo raro libro a un ottimo prezzo. Perfettamente tenuto, ottima la spedizione daglu Usa.とても分かりやすく詳しく書かれているので、買ってよかったです。

⭐

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