Круг

by Vladimir Nabokov, Владимир Набоков

Nabokov V. - Krug . Khudlit, 1990 g., Leningrad, kolichestvo 544s. Hardcover

544 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Набоков) was a writer defined by a life of forced movement and extraordinary linguistic transformation. Born into a wealthy, liberal aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, he grew up trilingual, speaking Russian, English, and French in a household that nurtured his intellectual curiosities, including a lifelong passion for butterflies. This seemingly idyllic, privileged existence was abruptly shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution, which forced the family into permanent exile in 1919. This early, profound experience of displacement and the loss of a homeland became a central, enduring theme in his subsequent work, fueling his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the irretrievable past.
The first phase of his literary life began in Europe, primarily in Berlin, where he established himself as a leading voice among the Russian émigré community under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin". During this prolific period, he penned nine novels in his native tongue, showcasing a precocious talent for intricate plotting and character study. Works like The Defense explored obsession through the extended metaphor of chess, while Invitation to a Beheading served as a potent, surreal critique of totalitarian absurdity. In 1925, he married Véra Slonim, an intellectual force in her own right, who would become his indispensable partner, editor, translator, and lifelong anchor.
The escalating shadow of Nazism necessitated another, urgent relocation in 1940, this time to the United States. It was here that Nabokov undertook an extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, making the challenging yet resolute shift from Russian to English as his primary language of expression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945, solidifying his new life in North America. To support his family, he took on academic positions, first founding the Russian department at Wellesley College, and later serving as a highly regarded professor of Russian and European literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959.
During this academic tenure, he also dedicated significant time to his other great passion: lepidoptery. He worked as an unpaid curator of butterflies at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His scientific work was far from amateurish; he developed novel taxonomic methods and a groundbreaking, highly debated theory on the migration patterns and phylogeny of the Polyommatus blue butterflies, a hypothesis that modern DNA analysis confirmed decades later.
Nabokov achieved widespread international fame and financial independence with the publication of Lolita in 1955, a novel that was initially met with controversy and censorship battles due to its provocative subject matter concerning a middle-aged literature professor and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The novel's critical and commercial success finally allowed him to leave teaching and academia behind. In 1959, he and Véra moved permanently to the quiet luxury of the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where he focused solely on writing, translating his earlier Russian works into meticulous English, and studying local butterflies.
His later English novels, such as Pale Fire (1962), a complex, postmodern narrative structured around a 999-line poem and its delusional commentator, cemented his reputation as a master stylist and a technical genius. His literary style is characterized by intricate wordplay, a profound use of allusion, structural complexity, and an insistence on the artist's total, almost tyrannical, control over their created world. Nabokov often expressed disdain for what he termed "topical trash" and the simplistic interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis, preferring instead to focus on the power of individual consciousness, the mechanics of memory, and the intricate, often deceptive, interplay between art and perceived "reality". His unique body of work, straddling multiple cultures and languages, continues to

Reviews

[Vladimir (mecha_yota) Altukhov · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Circle by Vladimir Nabokov

This one was good.

Being a spin-off of The Gift , this story portrays the family of Godunov-Cherdyntsev from an entirely different perspective. While the novel generously presents Fyodor's memories of his family and their residence in a nostalgic, heartwarming way, the views of Innokentiy's, the family acquaintance, shown in the story are everything but pleasant. Not once the narration highlights his contempt towards the rich, master-like lifestyle Godunov-Cherdyntsev used to keep in pre-Revolutionary Russia (especially compared with their current financial state, toned down after the emigration), as well as towards the servility his own father had to project for the help once provided. Piled up with The Gift, it creates an interesting picture of two opposite groups, perceiving the same thing differently, in a certain way mirroring what Fyodor did in his work, showcasing alternative views on Chernyshevsky and his life.

The story is packed with great detailed prose, more chill and gentle unlike the one occupying its big brother. All the same, it creates the images of the past vividly, presenting all the necessary fragments one need to assemble the picture in mind. The circular image--another parallel with the novel--was a nice addition. The way I see it, live is a constant circular flow, it keeps on bringing the things from the past into the present, kindling a once dead fire, only for the process to repeat sometime later.

Good story that can be read without The Gift, although the latter definitely broadens the perception.

[Carina Macdonald · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read this in both russian and then in english. the english was no clearer than the russian - this did not make sense.