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The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov: A Novel
In his novel based on the extraordinary life of the brother of Vladimir Nabokov, Paul Russell re-creates the rich and changing world in which Sergey, his family and friends lived; from wealth and position in pre-revolutionary Russia to the halls of Cambridge University and the Parisian salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. But it is the honesty and vulnerability of Sergey, our young gay narrator, that hook the his stuttering childhood in the shadow of his brilliant brother, his opium-fueled evenings with Cocteau, his troubled love life on the margins of the Ballets Russes and its legendary cast, and his isolation in war-torn Berlin.A meticulously researched novel, featuring an extraordinary cast of characters (including Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Magnus Hirschfield, and of course the master himself, Vladimir Nabokov), this is ultimately the story of a beautiful and vulnerable boy growing into an enlightened and courageous man.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Paul Russell
37 books136 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Paul Russell received his doctorate from Cornell in 1983 for a dissertation on the novelist Vladimir Nabokov and is currently a Professor in the English Department at Vassar College.
His fourth novel, The Coming Storm won the 2000 Ferro-Grumley Award for Gay Male Fiction.
His short fiction has appeared in literary journals such as Black Warrior Review, and Carolina Quarterly.
Paul Russell received his doctorate from Cornell in 1983 for a dissertation on the novelist Vladimir Nabokov and is currently a Professor in the English Department at Vassar College.
His fourth novel, The Coming Storm won the 2000 Ferro-Grumley Award for Gay Male Fiction.
His short fiction has appeared in literary journals such as Black Warrior Review, and Carolina Quarterly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
December 14, 2022
I'm daringly shelving this as biography, even though it is a novel, and many of the details and circumstances have been fleshed out from scant information.
Overshadowed by an older brother (the Nabokov who became a famous writer) and forced to flee Russia when the Bolsheviks took over, Sergey Nabokov lived the piecemeal life of an emigré in Europe, mostly in Berlin and Paris. He was also gay, and moved in artistic circles.
Sometimes when famous figures are encountered in novels, they appear wooden or false. For example, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in fiction and movies are rarely rendered in a way that resonates with this biased reader. However, here Russell manages to depict Gertrude and Alice in a realistic but not flattering light. Other characters too flicker in and out of the frame: such as Jean Cocteau with his opium pipe and feral teenagers, and Diaghilev and all the talents surrounding and feeding the Ballet Russe.
I greatly enjoyed this novel, but I have to wonder—how did it take ten years to come to my attention? Absolutely sublime historical fiction. And maybe a biography. Definitely a novel!
Overshadowed by an older brother (the Nabokov who became a famous writer) and forced to flee Russia when the Bolsheviks took over, Sergey Nabokov lived the piecemeal life of an emigré in Europe, mostly in Berlin and Paris. He was also gay, and moved in artistic circles.
Sometimes when famous figures are encountered in novels, they appear wooden or false. For example, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in fiction and movies are rarely rendered in a way that resonates with this biased reader. However, here Russell manages to depict Gertrude and Alice in a realistic but not flattering light. Other characters too flicker in and out of the frame: such as Jean Cocteau with his opium pipe and feral teenagers, and Diaghilev and all the talents surrounding and feeding the Ballet Russe.
I greatly enjoyed this novel, but I have to wonder—how did it take ten years to come to my attention? Absolutely sublime historical fiction. And maybe a biography. Definitely a novel!
June 1, 2016
This photograph taken of the family when it was in Yalta in 1917 seems to be the only photograph of Sergey Nabokov...
Only in 1966, when he and Véra were living comfortably in their adopted Switzerland—Lolita having propelled him to wealth and worldwide fame—did Nabokov briefly address the subject of his dead brother. The third version of his celebrated autobiography Speak, Memory contains two pages absent from the earlier editions. “For various reasons,” he writes, “I find it inordinately hard to speak about my other brother. He is a mere shadow in the background of my richest and most detailed recollections. “After enumerating their many differences, his perplexities and discoveries regarding Sergey’s character, his various instances of regrettable behavior toward him, Nabokov concludes, with eloquent abjection, “It is one of those lives that hopelessly claim a belated something—compassion, understanding, no matter what—which the mere recognition of such a want can neither replace nor redeem.”
The most real UNREAL BIOGRAPHY of the unknown brother of one of the most significant writers of the 20th century.
It is difficult to find a book worm who has never heard the name of Vladimir Nabokov or unfamiliar to the novel Lolita, but hardly a lot of readers know about Sergey Nabokov, the second son in the family after Vladimir Nabokov, born 11 months after his famous brother and with a very different fate ahead of him. Sergei, as opposed to Vladimir, grew shy, awkward boy, suffering from poor eyesight and strong stuttering. And Sergey was gay. He was deeply kind and highly sensitive, and therefore an easy butt for teasing sports and mobbing.
It was an unspoken family secret. After his brother outed him at the age of 15, things were never the same for him within the family-although the family reacted to this fact, relatively quiet.
Maybe exactly the homosexuality of Sergey was the reason of the difficult relationship between two brothers – meanwhile, it is well known that Vladimir Nabokov had a fixed distaste for homosexuality.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is for sure one of the best books I've read not only this year.
The author did a great job, doing research and putting together those few facts and informations about Sergey Nabokov that were left – mostly they were just footnotes in a familiy chronicals and very little have been preserved -and creating an unforgettible great novel about a difficult and horrible period of history, about the family that fled Russia and never came back and lost its motherland forever, about two brothers that were bothe brilliant and talented, both rich and handsome and though had totally different fates - one enjoyed a literary international fame and praise, the other
Written in the form of of a memoir from Sergey's POV this book ends when someone rings the doorbell. Even knowing WHO was there I didn't cry reading the last sentence, maybe because of the narrator- Sergey has never sounded depressing and helpless. He was smart, gentle, witty, optimistic and very kind person. But I cried reading the Afterword. And I'm crying now, writing my review. So...be prepared.
The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokovis a literary juwel, full of unforgettable characters, historical events, gentle irony and incredibly beautiful mind of Sergey, the unknown brother of one of the most important writers of the 20th century.
READ IT.
It is your contribution that the name of Sergey Nabokov won't get lost without a trace in the archives of history...
November 18, 2021
On the edge, a boy on the edge, a man on the edge. Skirting on the outskirts of his family and their life, living in the shadows. Making a life elsewhere, loyal, brave, quiet, shy, lonely Sergei, but with such a great love and willingness to forgive, to see the best in those around him. Just another human being, struggling with life and standing up when it's time to be counted.
With more than a nudge to The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov's novel about two brothers, Russell writes The Unreal Life of Sergei Nabokov and debunks 'real'. Are you unreal because you are not famous like your brother, not straight like your brother, not published like your brother. Well to me Seryosha is as real as famous Vladimir. I've never read Nabokov. The image I get of him from this book and from further bio info I've read has not made me anxious to know him. I have to bow to Seryosha's advice and try to meet his brother through his work as probably his writing is better than meeting him in person. In the meantime I'm more than glad I met Seryosha, he is real to me, he was not the 'hey look at me' kind of guy, but I see him.
Thank you Irchik for taking me with you for this one.
http://www.snarke.com/2009/11/real-li...
With more than a nudge to The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov's novel about two brothers, Russell writes The Unreal Life of Sergei Nabokov and debunks 'real'. Are you unreal because you are not famous like your brother, not straight like your brother, not published like your brother. Well to me Seryosha is as real as famous Vladimir. I've never read Nabokov. The image I get of him from this book and from further bio info I've read has not made me anxious to know him. I have to bow to Seryosha's advice and try to meet his brother through his work as probably his writing is better than meeting him in person. In the meantime I'm more than glad I met Seryosha, he is real to me, he was not the 'hey look at me' kind of guy, but I see him.
Thank you Irchik for taking me with you for this one.
http://www.snarke.com/2009/11/real-li...
April 20, 2014
First, this is an "imagined" autobiography. I wasn't sure at first if I even wanted to read it because of this fact, but, given the author's faultless reputation for research, I gave it a go. I am so glad that I did.
Sergey Nabokov was the younger gay brother of THE Nabokov. They were Russian aristocrats back when that meant something. The book starts with the brothers living comfortably as nobles in Russia and finishes decades later in a Nazi concentration camp.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is not pleasant to read about some of the horrors our gay fathers have endured, but I find it necessary and fulfilling. I hope everyone gives this one a go.
Sergey Nabokov was the younger gay brother of THE Nabokov. They were Russian aristocrats back when that meant something. The book starts with the brothers living comfortably as nobles in Russia and finishes decades later in a Nazi concentration camp.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is not pleasant to read about some of the horrors our gay fathers have endured, but I find it necessary and fulfilling. I hope everyone gives this one a go.
January 26, 2012
What if Nabokov's brother were a gay Forrest Gump -- a naive, incurious bystander at many of the last century's great (and not so great) moments of cultural upheaval in Europe: the Bolshevik revolution, the roaring 20s in Paris, the rise of the Nazis, Nabokov's own skyrocketing popularity as a writer, etc. etc. etc.?
An intriguing and ambitious premise, to be sure, but this book doesn't quite deliver. Russell is delightful when he's describing the small, queer moments of clueless little Seryosha's life. There are countless hilarious, fantastically written, and often quite moving setpieces covering everything from crashing imperial balls in drag to buttfucking your high school bully, from going on a booze cruise with Diaghilev to finding a gay bar in the bombed-out ruins of WWII-era Berlin. As wonderfully, the frothy, queeny tone feels so much more of a piece with this jazzy era than Hemingway's tight-lipped, overly macho chronicle of the same moment in time in The Sun Also Rises (a clear reference of Russell's, though tellingly, Hemingway is pretty much the only boldface name Sergey does not encounter in his long sojourn in postwar Gay Paree).
Often while reading this I felt that Russell agreed with me, and wanted nothing more than to write a swift, bitchy, gossipy little tale about this juicy gay epoch and call it a night. But for some reason he felt the need to aim higher, and ended up not only completely missing the mark but writing a lesser novel as a result. Listen, a sense of grand historical scope and an extended discursus on the rise of the proletariat are wonderful, but feel a little out of place in a novel that also devotes a not insignificant word count to describing the joy of getting high on opium with Cocteau and a gaggle of ballerina rentboys in a bathhouse.
So why 3 stars? I should add that the lone exception to what the punditocracy would term this novel's "bad optics" would be the focus on the titular character's brother. Like most overeducated people, I love Nabokov and have read nearly all his work. (Since you asked, Bend Sinister is my favorite, but this edition of Lolita is my favorite cover design of all time. OF ALL TIME!!!; followed closely by the rejected version of this cover.) But this novel does an amazing job of calling my love for that brilliant prose stylist into question, casting a rivalry- and homophobia-infused pall over his writing in such a way that I was forced to admit that what I valued as erudition, omniscience, and technical prowess could just as easily be interpreted as pretension, calculating aloofness, and manipulation borne out of insecurity. It was not at all a pleasant experience -- the only people who are encouraged to hate Nabokov are recovering pedophiles -- but for that sleight of hand kill-your-idols alone, I forgive any homosexual cognitive dissonance on Russell's part. And I acknowledge, too, that perhaps I am asking too much when I demand that Russell topple and humanize the totality of political and social history up to 1945 as cannily and easily as he toppled Nabokov himself.
An intriguing and ambitious premise, to be sure, but this book doesn't quite deliver. Russell is delightful when he's describing the small, queer moments of clueless little Seryosha's life. There are countless hilarious, fantastically written, and often quite moving setpieces covering everything from crashing imperial balls in drag to buttfucking your high school bully, from going on a booze cruise with Diaghilev to finding a gay bar in the bombed-out ruins of WWII-era Berlin. As wonderfully, the frothy, queeny tone feels so much more of a piece with this jazzy era than Hemingway's tight-lipped, overly macho chronicle of the same moment in time in The Sun Also Rises (a clear reference of Russell's, though tellingly, Hemingway is pretty much the only boldface name Sergey does not encounter in his long sojourn in postwar Gay Paree).
Often while reading this I felt that Russell agreed with me, and wanted nothing more than to write a swift, bitchy, gossipy little tale about this juicy gay epoch and call it a night. But for some reason he felt the need to aim higher, and ended up not only completely missing the mark but writing a lesser novel as a result. Listen, a sense of grand historical scope and an extended discursus on the rise of the proletariat are wonderful, but feel a little out of place in a novel that also devotes a not insignificant word count to describing the joy of getting high on opium with Cocteau and a gaggle of ballerina rentboys in a bathhouse.
So why 3 stars? I should add that the lone exception to what the punditocracy would term this novel's "bad optics" would be the focus on the titular character's brother. Like most overeducated people, I love Nabokov and have read nearly all his work. (Since you asked, Bend Sinister is my favorite, but this edition of Lolita is my favorite cover design of all time. OF ALL TIME!!!; followed closely by the rejected version of this cover.) But this novel does an amazing job of calling my love for that brilliant prose stylist into question, casting a rivalry- and homophobia-infused pall over his writing in such a way that I was forced to admit that what I valued as erudition, omniscience, and technical prowess could just as easily be interpreted as pretension, calculating aloofness, and manipulation borne out of insecurity. It was not at all a pleasant experience -- the only people who are encouraged to hate Nabokov are recovering pedophiles -- but for that sleight of hand kill-your-idols alone, I forgive any homosexual cognitive dissonance on Russell's part. And I acknowledge, too, that perhaps I am asking too much when I demand that Russell topple and humanize the totality of political and social history up to 1945 as cannily and easily as he toppled Nabokov himself.
November 18, 2021
I have to admit that I'm kind of a Paul Russell junkie. I love his style of writing and his characters are so fascinating I wish I could sit down with them over a couple cups of tea and find out how they're doing these days. Unfortunately, they're fictional characters. Well, until now. This historical novel is a fascinating glimpse at a younger brother of Vladimir Nabokov and covers the years from just before the rise of the Soviets in Russia to just before the fall of the Nazis in Germany. While the majority of the novel takes place in Paris and St. Petersburg there are chapters in England, Austria and Germany as well. Sergey led an interesting life and had opportunities to meet a lot of fascinating people ... Or so the story goes.
The problem here, and it's a minor one, is that this really is fiction. Well, not exactly. Maybe we should call it extrapolation? Russell has conjured this tale from fragments and notations, clues and innuendoes from long, and probably exhausting, research. I'm sure there is more to embellishment here than fact, but that doesn't take away a single line of precious prose from this remarkable novel.
So, yeah, Sergey Nabokov may be the first Russell protagonist that I could have actually sat down with over some tea for that conversation, but that real Sergey was probably nothing like the Sergey in this book. That doesn't make me love this story any less. So why exactly did I put off reading this book for a couple years when I usually devour a new Paul Russell book as soon as I get it? I have no idea. And in the end it doesn't matter. This is a wonderful story. How much is true? Who cares. What's a better question: How much should be true? All of it. Every precious word.
The problem here, and it's a minor one, is that this really is fiction. Well, not exactly. Maybe we should call it extrapolation? Russell has conjured this tale from fragments and notations, clues and innuendoes from long, and probably exhausting, research. I'm sure there is more to embellishment here than fact, but that doesn't take away a single line of precious prose from this remarkable novel.
So, yeah, Sergey Nabokov may be the first Russell protagonist that I could have actually sat down with over some tea for that conversation, but that real Sergey was probably nothing like the Sergey in this book. That doesn't make me love this story any less. So why exactly did I put off reading this book for a couple years when I usually devour a new Paul Russell book as soon as I get it? I have no idea. And in the end it doesn't matter. This is a wonderful story. How much is true? Who cares. What's a better question: How much should be true? All of it. Every precious word.
April 15, 2014
I'm not quite sure how to review this fictional autobiography of the slightly (by 11 months) younger gay brother of Vladimir Nabokov. As a biography one can't help but judge the book by its subject and as such Sergey Nabokov was not an overtly likeable one. It's very much the case of a not particularly interesting (and overwhelmingly clichéd) person living a particularly interesting life during a particularly interesting time. And by overwhelmingly clichéd I mean a young boy who adores his pederast leaning uncle turning into a young promiscuous man living a uniquely vapid, shallow and superficial type of life and using rich men for money until he actually managed to fall in love with one of them, which presumably makes living off of him more moral. Despite upper class upbringing and an excellent education, he fails to make something of himself, develops an opium habit and spends his time resenting his infinitely more talented brother. To better show his character one only has to read the paragraph where Sergey discusses his initial fascination with Hitler due to the Nazis' stylish black and white posters and their utilization of young men in uniforms. Eventually his indiscretion leads him to a tragic end. His brother, of course, becomes a world renown novelist. Yet, despite my thoughts on the titular character, as a historical fiction, this was quite excellent, well written book that vividly brought to life the first four turbulent decades of Europe's last century from original perspectives and shedding some light on the homosexual community of the time. Shelved under gay fiction, this might easily be marginalized as such and such alone, yet it really shines in its historical aspect the most. Nabokov is presented here in a notably shabby fashion. Presumably it's all a matter of perspective.
April 15, 2016
It's Russian, it's sad. It's the portrayal of a completely marginalized and mostly forgotten life of Sergey Nabokov, cut tragically short in a Nazi concentration camp. Yet, thanks to the author's research and imagination, something beautiful emerges. At an early age, Seryosha keenly understands himself, and even when it costs him the affection and respect of his father (and later brother) he can't and doesn't hide who he is. In all the tragedy, there is beauty, friendship, love and even gay culture.
What can you say about someone, who well into adulthood finds god and the church and recalls the excitement of confirmation like this:
All I can say, is Lady Gaga wrote this one for Sergey Nabokov
What can you say about someone, who well into adulthood finds god and the church and recalls the excitement of confirmation like this:
And thus the happy day arrived—the happiest of my entire life. I woke at dawn eager as a schoolboy; all day I was good for nothing, so focused was my soul on the evening ahead. When night finally fell I put on my most exquisite makeup, wore my opera cloak, and took along my fanciest walking stick. I was, after all, going to be received into the House of the Lord.
All I can say, is Lady Gaga wrote this one for Sergey Nabokov
April 24, 2012
The only other Russell novel I've read is 'Sea of Tranquility', one of my all-time best books. I was intrigued by his latest, an imaginative recounting of the largely unknown, undocumented life of Vladimir Nabokov's 'lost' gay brother. The scholarship is impeccable, but I struggled to get a handle on this. There's a panoply of historical personages appearing as 'real' characters, and swathes of history the reader is expected to be familiar with. Russell's account of pre-War Berlin is certainly not on a par with Christopher Isherwood. I suppose the biggest problem for me is that Sergey is a largely unlikeable, unsympathetic character (among a coterie of unlikeable, self-absorbed characters.) Clearly Russell is somewhat infatuated with him -- which means he places him on a pedestal throughout. This serves to distance the character from the reader. I also did not like the ending, with Sergey's ultimate fate only revealed in the 'Afterword'. Russell should have seen it through to the end. And ... where's the sex!? After the white-hot heat of Sea of Tranquility, I was disappointed that everything in this book kind of happens off the page, as it were. A bit more intimacy between the sheets would have made this much more heartfelt and warm-blooded.
August 6, 2020
What an amazing piece of Historical Fiction. Paul Russell brings together the brave and open life of Sergey Nabokov, gay brother of the famous Russian novelist Vladimir. From the Russian Revolution to the horrors of World War II, Russell takes us on an epic journey of one quiet man who simply lives the truth of his life. I know this book will linger with me for a long time. Simply beautiful and heart wrenching.
July 3, 2012
Who knew? Vladimir Nabokov had a gay brother, Sergey, just 11 months younger, who stayed behind in Europe when Nabokov came to America, had a longterm love affair with another man, and then met a terrible fate at the hands of the Nazis. Russell's imagining of Sergey's short life is a remarkable act of literary excavation—by turns whimsical and gripping, magical and sobering.
The novel unfolds leisurely in pre-Revolutionary Russia, then moves to Paris and Berlin in the decadent decades between the two World Wars. Narrated by Sergey in the form of a memoir hastily written in 1943 as British bombs dropped on the continent, the novel is filled with unforgettable characterization, a gentle ironic tone and endless delicious anecdotes. There's Diaghilev pining over straight dancers in his Ballets Russe; Gertrude and Alice sucking up attention from the gay men they surround themselves with; Mrs. Cole Porter at a dinner party hoping someone will help her husband write more complex music...
In the midst of it all is Sergey—a dandy with a debilitating stammer, unloved brother of his ever-more-famous sibling—whom Russell portrays as both a queer forefather—acquainted with Magnus Hirschfeld and Jean Cocteau—and a figure doomed to history, unable to hide his true self and paying the price for it.
Highly accomplished, highly entertaining, highly recommended.
The novel unfolds leisurely in pre-Revolutionary Russia, then moves to Paris and Berlin in the decadent decades between the two World Wars. Narrated by Sergey in the form of a memoir hastily written in 1943 as British bombs dropped on the continent, the novel is filled with unforgettable characterization, a gentle ironic tone and endless delicious anecdotes. There's Diaghilev pining over straight dancers in his Ballets Russe; Gertrude and Alice sucking up attention from the gay men they surround themselves with; Mrs. Cole Porter at a dinner party hoping someone will help her husband write more complex music...
In the midst of it all is Sergey—a dandy with a debilitating stammer, unloved brother of his ever-more-famous sibling—whom Russell portrays as both a queer forefather—acquainted with Magnus Hirschfeld and Jean Cocteau—and a figure doomed to history, unable to hide his true self and paying the price for it.
Highly accomplished, highly entertaining, highly recommended.
March 12, 2016
This is an understated jewel. So powerfully written, it took my breath away and left me ruined for my future books.
It's been years since I read in Russian, and this was undoubtedly a perfect choice to remind myself how rich and beautiful the language is when used by a skilful writer. Brilliant translation that brought me that much closer to the characters and - just like them - to the homeland I left behind.
I am grateful to the author for building this novel in such a way that the happiest part of it, the culmination, comes almost last. It has lifted my spirits so much that in the end I felt a bittersweet peace.
I have so many thoughts - one overtaking the other - about Serezha's 'cruel' childhood, his never ending rivalry with the most-beloved-later-famous brother, his heart wrenching longing for affection or at least approval by his parents/brother/uncle/friends or anybody for that matter. A lone wolf (or rather lamb), surrounding himself with people yet always being alone.
And, to include my random thought my reading friend Sofia advised I write here too - while reading this novel, I was also thinking how all the famous people wear masks that they let their fans see and how incorrect their personalities remain in our memories. And how all those affected negatively by their celebrity siblings/relatives/friends die with their stories untold. To live in others' shadow all our life is a nightmare to me. But I admired Serezha - for his kindness, intelligence, and many other qualities, but mainly - for his courage to remain who he is and not the person everyone wanted him to be.
I can talk and discuss this endlessly as really great books tend to influence us so, but I'll just say this - I feel privileged to have read Sergey Nabokov's story. HE's become my real hero (unlike his brother). And I cannot possibly recommend it highly enough.
And to my supporting, understanding, hand-holding friend Sofia - this was quite a journey, wasn't it? I'm so glad I've had you to talk to every step of the way. This would've been a very lonely experience without you. Thank you!
And Lenka - I don't know how you stumbled upon this book, but thank you for discovering and recommending it to us!
***5 stars*** Of course!
P.S.: This is my raw review. Which means I finished the book at 1 AM and wrote this straight after.
It's been years since I read in Russian, and this was undoubtedly a perfect choice to remind myself how rich and beautiful the language is when used by a skilful writer. Brilliant translation that brought me that much closer to the characters and - just like them - to the homeland I left behind.
I am grateful to the author for building this novel in such a way that the happiest part of it, the culmination, comes almost last. It has lifted my spirits so much that in the end I felt a bittersweet peace.
I have so many thoughts - one overtaking the other - about Serezha's 'cruel' childhood, his never ending rivalry with the most-beloved-later-famous brother, his heart wrenching longing for affection or at least approval by his parents/brother/uncle/friends or anybody for that matter. A lone wolf (or rather lamb), surrounding himself with people yet always being alone.
And, to include my random thought my reading friend Sofia advised I write here too - while reading this novel, I was also thinking how all the famous people wear masks that they let their fans see and how incorrect their personalities remain in our memories. And how all those affected negatively by their celebrity siblings/relatives/friends die with their stories untold. To live in others' shadow all our life is a nightmare to me. But I admired Serezha - for his kindness, intelligence, and many other qualities, but mainly - for his courage to remain who he is and not the person everyone wanted him to be.
I can talk and discuss this endlessly as really great books tend to influence us so, but I'll just say this - I feel privileged to have read Sergey Nabokov's story. HE's become my real hero (unlike his brother). And I cannot possibly recommend it highly enough.
And to my supporting, understanding, hand-holding friend Sofia - this was quite a journey, wasn't it? I'm so glad I've had you to talk to every step of the way. This would've been a very lonely experience without you. Thank you!
And Lenka - I don't know how you stumbled upon this book, but thank you for discovering and recommending it to us!
***5 stars*** Of course!
P.S.: This is my raw review. Which means I finished the book at 1 AM and wrote this straight after.
November 20, 2011
Most people who like to read know who Vladimir Nabokov was. Until this book, almost no one had heard of Sergey Nabokov. Sergey was Vladimir’s brother, younger by only 11 months. Throughout childhood the stuttering Sergey stood in the shadow of his charismatic brother, largely ignored by parents that had two children too close together. He was gay, something that his famous brother was not happy with. Born in Russia in 1900, his early life was one of comfortable wealth but uncomfortable emotions. All too soon, the Russian Revolution scattered his family and destroyed the wealth, leaving Sergey with only his talent for languages to fall back on. He eked out a bare living by giving language lessons and doing translations. Despite his poverty, his life was rich in artistic acquaintances- Cocteau, Diaghilev, Stein, Toklas, poets and dancers and composers were among his friends and lovers. Eventually, he died in a Nazi concentration camp, having committed the two crimes of being gay and speaking out against the Nazi régime.
This book is a novel, not a biography although it is very well researched. Sergey speaks to us in first person, alternating between telling us of his youth and the tense days that build up to his arrest by the Nazis. He comes across as an appealing man, one who craves the love of his family and a stable relationship. While possessing no great talents himself, he loved the avant garde art that was current in Europe at the time, giving up food to be able to attend shows. The book is a marvelous look at the art crowd, with all its foibles and flamboyance. Sergey’s search for happiness, which eludes him for so many years before finally being rewarded, is all the more poignant for knowing that it will end all too soon.
This book is a novel, not a biography although it is very well researched. Sergey speaks to us in first person, alternating between telling us of his youth and the tense days that build up to his arrest by the Nazis. He comes across as an appealing man, one who craves the love of his family and a stable relationship. While possessing no great talents himself, he loved the avant garde art that was current in Europe at the time, giving up food to be able to attend shows. The book is a marvelous look at the art crowd, with all its foibles and flamboyance. Sergey’s search for happiness, which eludes him for so many years before finally being rewarded, is all the more poignant for knowing that it will end all too soon.
March 12, 2012
There's a remoteness that pervades this novel. The ballet, inter-war Europe and most especially our protagonist, Sergey Nabokov, remain always at a distance. Maybe this is intentional, this is afterall a story of two lost worlds, pre-Revolutionary Russia which the Nabokov family fled when Sergey and Vladimir were in their late teens, and the grand capitals of Europe about to be changed forever by the second world war.
"You are all a lost generation," Gertrude Stein said to Ernest Hemingway of the American ex-pat writers, but the same can equally be said of the Russian émigrés. Russell takes us at a glacial pace to the end we know it coming, and has the gall the to rush us through the happy years. Throughout the parties and the trysts and the ballets there hangs always a sense of loss and of longing. (memo to self: read some happy books for godssakes)
"You are all a lost generation," Gertrude Stein said to Ernest Hemingway of the American ex-pat writers, but the same can equally be said of the Russian émigrés. Russell takes us at a glacial pace to the end we know it coming, and has the gall the to rush us through the happy years. Throughout the parties and the trysts and the ballets there hangs always a sense of loss and of longing. (memo to self: read some happy books for godssakes)
May 29, 2016
Not for the titillation crowd. Very well written, but imagined, look into the life of young gay Russian of means in a time when that still meant something.
October 14, 2011
A Very Real Unreal Biography/Novel
Paul Russell has a very special gift. He is able to enter the timeframe of his characters' lives in such a way that he makes the reader able to feel like a traveling companion rather than an observer from a distance. THE UNREAL LIFE OF SERGEY NABOKOV is rich in the use of language that sets a period of history, using colloquialisms and other-country means of addressing friends, family, and loved ones, and describing an historical tenor that all that happens to seems so very natural, so unstilted, so refreshingly informative.
The more famous of the two Nabokov Brothers -Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899 - 1977), writer of 'Lolita' and many other brilliant and controversial novels and poems, even making it to the cover of TIME magazine - far outshone his younger brother Sergey. Of note, at the age of 16, Vladimir discovered the diary of his enigmatic 15-year-old brother lying open on a desk. The professions of gay love he found within its pages scandalized Vladimir. He promptly shared the contents with his tutor, who in turn handed it over to the Nabokovs' politician father. The diary contains details of what Vladimir called "a retroactive clarification of certain oddities of behavior on [Sergey's] part"; here Nabokov's homophobia is caught "on the edge of the remark." This bit of filial relationship in part explains the course of this fascinating novel. The brothers were at the extremes of sexual preference. While the erudite Vladimir moved from the family of wealth and opulence in Tsarist Russia into the world of multilingual literature, setting off first to England (where he and his brother studied at Cambridge) and then for America after escaping the Bolshevik Revolution, Sergey fled to Berlin where he embraced the gay life, coming to grips with his occult feelings and finding fleeting love. But that is not the sole course of the book or of Sergey's life. Russell's novel is framed as a series of diary entries, an entirely appropriate manner of relating this story as both brother's were inveterate diarists. 'While verging on cliché, this framing device allows for an intriguing parallel narrative: Sergey, while working for the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, attempts to dodge the Gestapo after uttering a subversive statement against the Reich. These passages are intercut with scenes from his past: a privileged Russian childhood, study at Cambridge, an opium-soaked friendship with Jean Cocteau, the world of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, and Gertrude Stein's salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus.'
While Sergey's story is somewhat less well defined than his brother's, Russell does manage to use a style of language that is endearing and allows the read to feel the presence of this stammering, vulnerable, needy, yet proud young Russian as he becomes intimate with the intelligentsia of the day. He is part of the lives of Diaghilev, Misia Sert, Jean Cocteau, Nijinsky by default, Picasso, Chanel, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein among many others. But for all the seeming braggadocio of our narrator we are left with a young gay man searching for love and for place in a world basically unkind and unaccepting. This is a love story by a brilliant writer: Paul Russell is a professor at Vassar and has written several brilliant books including 'The Coming Storm', 'War Against the Animals', 'The Gay 100: the most influential gay men, lesbians, GLBTs', etc. Hi ability to infuse his books with rich flavor and penetrating insights while at the same time consistently entertaining the reader makes him one of the brightest writers before the public today. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp
Paul Russell has a very special gift. He is able to enter the timeframe of his characters' lives in such a way that he makes the reader able to feel like a traveling companion rather than an observer from a distance. THE UNREAL LIFE OF SERGEY NABOKOV is rich in the use of language that sets a period of history, using colloquialisms and other-country means of addressing friends, family, and loved ones, and describing an historical tenor that all that happens to seems so very natural, so unstilted, so refreshingly informative.
The more famous of the two Nabokov Brothers -Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899 - 1977), writer of 'Lolita' and many other brilliant and controversial novels and poems, even making it to the cover of TIME magazine - far outshone his younger brother Sergey. Of note, at the age of 16, Vladimir discovered the diary of his enigmatic 15-year-old brother lying open on a desk. The professions of gay love he found within its pages scandalized Vladimir. He promptly shared the contents with his tutor, who in turn handed it over to the Nabokovs' politician father. The diary contains details of what Vladimir called "a retroactive clarification of certain oddities of behavior on [Sergey's] part"; here Nabokov's homophobia is caught "on the edge of the remark." This bit of filial relationship in part explains the course of this fascinating novel. The brothers were at the extremes of sexual preference. While the erudite Vladimir moved from the family of wealth and opulence in Tsarist Russia into the world of multilingual literature, setting off first to England (where he and his brother studied at Cambridge) and then for America after escaping the Bolshevik Revolution, Sergey fled to Berlin where he embraced the gay life, coming to grips with his occult feelings and finding fleeting love. But that is not the sole course of the book or of Sergey's life. Russell's novel is framed as a series of diary entries, an entirely appropriate manner of relating this story as both brother's were inveterate diarists. 'While verging on cliché, this framing device allows for an intriguing parallel narrative: Sergey, while working for the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, attempts to dodge the Gestapo after uttering a subversive statement against the Reich. These passages are intercut with scenes from his past: a privileged Russian childhood, study at Cambridge, an opium-soaked friendship with Jean Cocteau, the world of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, and Gertrude Stein's salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus.'
While Sergey's story is somewhat less well defined than his brother's, Russell does manage to use a style of language that is endearing and allows the read to feel the presence of this stammering, vulnerable, needy, yet proud young Russian as he becomes intimate with the intelligentsia of the day. He is part of the lives of Diaghilev, Misia Sert, Jean Cocteau, Nijinsky by default, Picasso, Chanel, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein among many others. But for all the seeming braggadocio of our narrator we are left with a young gay man searching for love and for place in a world basically unkind and unaccepting. This is a love story by a brilliant writer: Paul Russell is a professor at Vassar and has written several brilliant books including 'The Coming Storm', 'War Against the Animals', 'The Gay 100: the most influential gay men, lesbians, GLBTs', etc. Hi ability to infuse his books with rich flavor and penetrating insights while at the same time consistently entertaining the reader makes him one of the brightest writers before the public today. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp
May 16, 2021
What can I say? It's russian (even better: it includes imperial Russia and the revolutionary russian, but it moves to Paris after that), it's gay, it's sad and contains a rich cast of famous and less famous character that pursed beauty, love and progress in a time that was decadently beautiful and led many of them to despair and death or complete metamorphosis. Sergey is humble and insecure, not a genius but secretly deeply driven. To those who admire heroes above anything else, he will come off as a loser and good riddance to them, let them go back to their epic tales of grandeur. For those who enjoy a less predictive, more painfully humane nature, he is a delightfully desperate character that somehow managed to get through all the tragedy of his life without losing his merciful and gentle spirit.
Not for everyone. But definitely for some. Read it when you want to be mellowy desperate and feel like 20s-30s queer stuff, you will not be disappointed.
Not for everyone. But definitely for some. Read it when you want to be mellowy desperate and feel like 20s-30s queer stuff, you will not be disappointed.
December 11, 2022
My rating: 4.5
June 3, 2015
Well I've finally been able to finish reading The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov. Between finishing other library books, work, buying a new house, and preparing to move for the first time in nearly 15 years, it has been difficult to find the time to actually sit down and read. I've actually had to borrow this title three times before actually finishing it. Don't misunderstand me here, I quite enjoyed the novel.
Sergey grows up in a very difficult time starting in Tsarist Russia prior to the beginning of WWI. Growing up different Sergey had some definite advantages. He came from a fairly well to do family and as such enjoyed many privileges and advantages. His family was well aware of those of us who are different as there were other family members who also were different and their ‘deviance’ was tolerated in public even if it was ridiculed in private.
Forced from Russia during the period of the communist revolution the family exists in a number of different locations where Sergey reaches adulthood. After his father’s demise the family pulls apart and Sergey strikes out on his own meeting some of the most prominent people of the 20s and 30s. With the onset of the depression leading into WWII Sergey finds himself in German controlled Austria with his partner and later back in Berlin translating for the Nazi regime. Not one to be cowed into secrecy about who he is or what he believes he finds himself to be under observation for his less than supportive attitudes.
The novel offers an insight into a very different world that we know today, a world of privilege and the downfall into exile and poverty, as well as offering insights into the world where being honest and open about who you truly are could cost you everything, including life itself.
Sergey grows up in a very difficult time starting in Tsarist Russia prior to the beginning of WWI. Growing up different Sergey had some definite advantages. He came from a fairly well to do family and as such enjoyed many privileges and advantages. His family was well aware of those of us who are different as there were other family members who also were different and their ‘deviance’ was tolerated in public even if it was ridiculed in private.
Forced from Russia during the period of the communist revolution the family exists in a number of different locations where Sergey reaches adulthood. After his father’s demise the family pulls apart and Sergey strikes out on his own meeting some of the most prominent people of the 20s and 30s. With the onset of the depression leading into WWII Sergey finds himself in German controlled Austria with his partner and later back in Berlin translating for the Nazi regime. Not one to be cowed into secrecy about who he is or what he believes he finds himself to be under observation for his less than supportive attitudes.
The novel offers an insight into a very different world that we know today, a world of privilege and the downfall into exile and poverty, as well as offering insights into the world where being honest and open about who you truly are could cost you everything, including life itself.
January 3, 2012
Reading this book, experiencing the period in history it covers, through the eyes of the main character was such a different and moving experience, that I need a few days to compose a worthy review. Will edit and update when done.
01/03/12 ETA: Absolutely engrossing, the author has put together the story of a shy, endearing, vulnerable, unforgettable young man, valiantly facing circumstances that would have destroyed a lesser soul. Kudos, Mr. Russell, for a brilliant performance.
Highly recommended.
Full review available at http://arketipo187.com/2011/12/22/boo...
01/03/12 ETA: Absolutely engrossing, the author has put together the story of a shy, endearing, vulnerable, unforgettable young man, valiantly facing circumstances that would have destroyed a lesser soul. Kudos, Mr. Russell, for a brilliant performance.
Highly recommended.
Full review available at http://arketipo187.com/2011/12/22/boo...
March 16, 2021
I don't have any special insight to share, I just really enjoyed this book, and want to put the title out there so other's might too.
It's smart, humorous, well-written, and fun.
It's smart, humorous, well-written, and fun.
December 2, 2025
"...we only, any of us, live in art. No matter whether it is in books, painting, music, or dance, it is there we flourish, there we survive. It has taken me many years to come to this realisation. Without my brother's pages I would never have been able to begin my own..."
Thus Paul Russell in his tour de force of a novel has Sergey Nabokov write as he waits for the Gestapo to take him away into the Nazi 'Nacht und Nebel' which would consume him. That Sergey can never be separated from the brother who outshone and survived him is at the heart of this novel and again Paul Russell's knowledge and love of the work Vladimir gives the novel is beauty as well as pathos.
Mr. Russell has created art out of the life of Sergey Nabokov and has with immense delicacy and tact resurrected the vanished world of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and emigre Berlin and Paris as they are recalled by Sergey. It is an extraordinary accomplishment by an immensely fine author who has never been given the recognition he deserves. Compared to fatuous nonsense that fills the New York Times best seller lists he is a true original.
This is my second reading of this novel and it was as wonderful as my first. I recommend it and all the novels of Paul Russell.
Thus Paul Russell in his tour de force of a novel has Sergey Nabokov write as he waits for the Gestapo to take him away into the Nazi 'Nacht und Nebel' which would consume him. That Sergey can never be separated from the brother who outshone and survived him is at the heart of this novel and again Paul Russell's knowledge and love of the work Vladimir gives the novel is beauty as well as pathos.
Mr. Russell has created art out of the life of Sergey Nabokov and has with immense delicacy and tact resurrected the vanished world of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and emigre Berlin and Paris as they are recalled by Sergey. It is an extraordinary accomplishment by an immensely fine author who has never been given the recognition he deserves. Compared to fatuous nonsense that fills the New York Times best seller lists he is a true original.
This is my second reading of this novel and it was as wonderful as my first. I recommend it and all the novels of Paul Russell.
January 26, 2026
This was a very moving story of Sergey who lived as authentically as he could in a time when homosexuality was criminalized, and for him fatal in a concentration camp.
I came to the book after reading novels by Nabokov and heard a podcast about his gay younger brother who was soft-spoken and artsy with a stuffer. He sounded so different from his brother with his bulldog of a literary career.
I enjoyed learning about the aristocratic childhood of Sergey in St. Petersburg and pre/post revolutionary Russia. I learned of the Red’s and White’s and Russia’s sudden collapse of privilege leading up to WWII. And the displacement of Russia’s wealthy families as they fled Bolshevik rule. At times, I got bogged down with the amount of names and details of Sergey’s parties. But the main figures were well rounded and reappear towards the end of the book. I noticed this parallel to Nabokov’s own work.
I was happy to learn that Sergey was well traveled and lived in Paris, and Germany and found Hermann and the arts. Such a sad ending….so much to learn from WWII.
I came to the book after reading novels by Nabokov and heard a podcast about his gay younger brother who was soft-spoken and artsy with a stuffer. He sounded so different from his brother with his bulldog of a literary career.
I enjoyed learning about the aristocratic childhood of Sergey in St. Petersburg and pre/post revolutionary Russia. I learned of the Red’s and White’s and Russia’s sudden collapse of privilege leading up to WWII. And the displacement of Russia’s wealthy families as they fled Bolshevik rule. At times, I got bogged down with the amount of names and details of Sergey’s parties. But the main figures were well rounded and reappear towards the end of the book. I noticed this parallel to Nabokov’s own work.
I was happy to learn that Sergey was well traveled and lived in Paris, and Germany and found Hermann and the arts. Such a sad ending….so much to learn from WWII.
January 21, 2025
Szczerze- spodziewałam się czegoś lepszego po tej książce. Jedyne, co tak naprawdę mnie w niej urzekło to wspominki o Vladimirze. Postać samego Siergieja Nabokova jest po prostu nudna (może nudno poprowadzona), pomimo tych wszystkich rzeczy, które mu się w życiu przytrafiły.
November 7, 2016
The title Paul Russell's novel, "The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov" still has me a little puzzled even after finishing the book. "Unreal" - what is "unreal"? Russell has written an excellent book in the genre of real-people-with-possibly-invented-lives. There have been several in the past few years; Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Hemingway, etc, just to name a few. This is a book, by the way, where the reader should have ready access to Wikipedia to look up the people and places mentioned in the story.
After reading the Wiki entry on Vladimir Nabokov, I knew that many of the people Russell writes about were, indeed, "real". Vladimir really did have a younger brother named Sergey, who was a gay man (following in the tradition of several other Nabokov family members) who escaped Russia after the 1917 Revolution, attended college at Cambridge, lived in Paris, Berlin, and the south of Germany, and died in a concentration camp in January, 1945. Sergey had been put into Neuengamme, arrested for making "subversive statements" against the Reich and the German war effort. He had previously been arrested and served time for being a homosexual.
Okay, so what's "unreal"? But, if I'm a little confused about the book's title, I'm not at all disappointed in the writing. Russell has written a wonderful study of a man who is relatively content in his identity as a gay man, in a time when such acceptance was often difficult to receive in society. Of course, living in Paris in the 1920's in the Russian emigre community and counting Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, Picasso, and many other people of the arts as his friends creates a society of acceptance. A minor note throughout the novel was the relationship between the brothers, Sergey and Vladimir.
In the afterward of the Advanced Reading Copy I read, Russell writes a bit about how he came to write the book. The facts of Sergey Nabokov's life - as known - combined with imagined plot points based on those facts. I suppose that's what he meant by "unreal". In any case, it's a beautifully written book about an interesting man in interesting times.
After reading the Wiki entry on Vladimir Nabokov, I knew that many of the people Russell writes about were, indeed, "real". Vladimir really did have a younger brother named Sergey, who was a gay man (following in the tradition of several other Nabokov family members) who escaped Russia after the 1917 Revolution, attended college at Cambridge, lived in Paris, Berlin, and the south of Germany, and died in a concentration camp in January, 1945. Sergey had been put into Neuengamme, arrested for making "subversive statements" against the Reich and the German war effort. He had previously been arrested and served time for being a homosexual.
Okay, so what's "unreal"? But, if I'm a little confused about the book's title, I'm not at all disappointed in the writing. Russell has written a wonderful study of a man who is relatively content in his identity as a gay man, in a time when such acceptance was often difficult to receive in society. Of course, living in Paris in the 1920's in the Russian emigre community and counting Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, Picasso, and many other people of the arts as his friends creates a society of acceptance. A minor note throughout the novel was the relationship between the brothers, Sergey and Vladimir.
In the afterward of the Advanced Reading Copy I read, Russell writes a bit about how he came to write the book. The facts of Sergey Nabokov's life - as known - combined with imagined plot points based on those facts. I suppose that's what he meant by "unreal". In any case, it's a beautifully written book about an interesting man in interesting times.
June 4, 2012
Here's my review of this strikingly good novel, one that's literary yet so readable, for the Historical Novel Society's review magazine. They're a great organization if you love historical novels and history.
This beautifully imagined and written novel, which feels more like a literary biography than a fiction, tells the story of Vladimir Nabokov’s younger brother, a brother who followed too soon—11 months—after the 1899 birth of his bullying, brilliant sibling. Author Russell heard about Sergey Nabokov in an essay in Salon.com, and now has conjured him back to life with this many-layered, readable page-turner. The story begins with Sergey trapped in 1943 Berlin. An arrest seeming inevitable, Sergey is writing the story of his life, “without knowing how much time remains.” The chapters of the memoir then take their turns with 1943’s events.
Russell has succeeded in the impressive feat of making vivid and compelling the story of a vulnerable hanger-on, a person Vladimir Nabokov described as a “shadow in the background.” Sergey, an affectionate child in a liberal, wealthy Russian family that celebrated the gregarious Vladimir, was mostly overlooked. An effeminate, stuttering adolescent, Sergey was pitied and scorned. As an adult, he drifted for years, opium making him even more shadowlike as he searched for love and meaning. The shimmering world he lived in, though!—the tables he ate at, and the beds he slept in! After graduating from Cambridge, Sergey moved with the glitterati of between-the-wars Paris. Here are Cocteau, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and Vladimir Nabokov himself, all of them written with wit. There are fireworks of detail that would overwhelm a reader in the hands of a less adept writer. (Details pulled off in part, it turns out, by a cadre of research assistants!)
This is a book that ends all too quickly, and calls to be reread and enjoyed again. Absolutely recommended.
This beautifully imagined and written novel, which feels more like a literary biography than a fiction, tells the story of Vladimir Nabokov’s younger brother, a brother who followed too soon—11 months—after the 1899 birth of his bullying, brilliant sibling. Author Russell heard about Sergey Nabokov in an essay in Salon.com, and now has conjured him back to life with this many-layered, readable page-turner. The story begins with Sergey trapped in 1943 Berlin. An arrest seeming inevitable, Sergey is writing the story of his life, “without knowing how much time remains.” The chapters of the memoir then take their turns with 1943’s events.
Russell has succeeded in the impressive feat of making vivid and compelling the story of a vulnerable hanger-on, a person Vladimir Nabokov described as a “shadow in the background.” Sergey, an affectionate child in a liberal, wealthy Russian family that celebrated the gregarious Vladimir, was mostly overlooked. An effeminate, stuttering adolescent, Sergey was pitied and scorned. As an adult, he drifted for years, opium making him even more shadowlike as he searched for love and meaning. The shimmering world he lived in, though!—the tables he ate at, and the beds he slept in! After graduating from Cambridge, Sergey moved with the glitterati of between-the-wars Paris. Here are Cocteau, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and Vladimir Nabokov himself, all of them written with wit. There are fireworks of detail that would overwhelm a reader in the hands of a less adept writer. (Details pulled off in part, it turns out, by a cadre of research assistants!)
This is a book that ends all too quickly, and calls to be reread and enjoyed again. Absolutely recommended.
August 11, 2017
Not unexpectedly, this story has layers of sadness: Sergey Nabokov's ostracization as a result of a stammer and his homosexuality; a lack of acknowledgment by his family in his youth; the lack of acknowledgment by Vladimir despite his attempts to draw closer to him in adultood; his being left behind and seemingly forgotten while his brother sought success; his search for love; his ultimate death in a camp in WWII.
Despite the tragedy of this life unfinished, the book is celebratory in that it brings life to an individual that history, and Vladimir, ignored or forgot. And, despite its title, it makes real a figure that we would otherwise know too little about.
Contrary to what other writers/researchers have done when they tackle the life of a less-known historical figure, Russell legitimizes Sergey Nabokov's existence rather than unwittingly proving that he was marginalized by history for a reason (too boring, too little surviving information, less sophisticated than those in his circle). The clever echos of Nabokov's own literary thoughts and the references to real-life events and people give the story substance. But Russell bestows upon the fictional Sergey a personality that was apart from his famous brother: the not-Nabokovian voice shows that Sergey was not simply "Nabokov's gay brother." Sergey was a person whose life story can stand on its own--indeed, like Sergey learned to do as a result of his experiences.
Despite the tragedy of this life unfinished, the book is celebratory in that it brings life to an individual that history, and Vladimir, ignored or forgot. And, despite its title, it makes real a figure that we would otherwise know too little about.
Contrary to what other writers/researchers have done when they tackle the life of a less-known historical figure, Russell legitimizes Sergey Nabokov's existence rather than unwittingly proving that he was marginalized by history for a reason (too boring, too little surviving information, less sophisticated than those in his circle). The clever echos of Nabokov's own literary thoughts and the references to real-life events and people give the story substance. But Russell bestows upon the fictional Sergey a personality that was apart from his famous brother: the not-Nabokovian voice shows that Sergey was not simply "Nabokov's gay brother." Sergey was a person whose life story can stand on its own--indeed, like Sergey learned to do as a result of his experiences.
January 15, 2015
Kitap Nabokov adını küçük bir sandalın dev bir yelken direğini taşıdığı gibi taşıyor. Eğreti bir kayık bu kadar heybetli bir serenderi sırtlanıyorsa, buna uygun dil, kurgu ve içerik zenginliğini de yüklenmesi gerekirdi. Kitap sadık Nabokov okurlarını tatmin edecek bir eser değil, ama vasat da değil.
Nabokov'u en iyi bilip anlatanların başında gelen çevirmen Yiğit Yazuz'un da dikkatini çektiği üzere kapak fotoğrafındaki görsel Sergey'e değil ağabeyi Vladimir'e ait. Bu durum Everest Yayınları için bir mahcubiyet konusu olmuştur her halde. (meraklısı için: http://nabokovblog.blogspot.com.tr/20... )
Roman, farklı zaman ve mekanlara ayrılmış bölümlerle ilerliyor. Okur,bölümlerin başladığı ritmle sürmesini bekliyor ancak belli bir ritmle ilerleyen bölümlerin ritmi bir süre sonra bozuluyor. Bazı bölümler sayfalarca sürerken bazıları kısaca geçiştiriliyor.
Kitaba hakim olan edebi hazzın ortalaması erotik konulara gelindiğinde aniden düşüyor. Erotik temalarda hoyrat ve pornografik bir dile geçiliyor. Buna itiraz etmek için pornografiye karşı olmak gerekmiyor ancak bu açık saçıklık edebiyatın imkanlarının yeterince kullanılmadığını düşündürtüyor.
Nabokov'u en iyi bilip anlatanların başında gelen çevirmen Yiğit Yazuz'un da dikkatini çektiği üzere kapak fotoğrafındaki görsel Sergey'e değil ağabeyi Vladimir'e ait. Bu durum Everest Yayınları için bir mahcubiyet konusu olmuştur her halde. (meraklısı için: http://nabokovblog.blogspot.com.tr/20... )
Roman, farklı zaman ve mekanlara ayrılmış bölümlerle ilerliyor. Okur,bölümlerin başladığı ritmle sürmesini bekliyor ancak belli bir ritmle ilerleyen bölümlerin ritmi bir süre sonra bozuluyor. Bazı bölümler sayfalarca sürerken bazıları kısaca geçiştiriliyor.
Kitaba hakim olan edebi hazzın ortalaması erotik konulara gelindiğinde aniden düşüyor. Erotik temalarda hoyrat ve pornografik bir dile geçiliyor. Buna itiraz etmek için pornografiye karşı olmak gerekmiyor ancak bu açık saçıklık edebiyatın imkanlarının yeterince kullanılmadığını düşündürtüyor.
January 4, 2017
As an opium-fueled odyssey delving into numerous literary worlds (Joyce, Sergey's older brother, Vladimir, and many others), this is sensational. But I had the feeling that the Master of Ceremonies from the film "Cabaret", Joel Grey, was standing in the background winking at us all the while. "Unreal" is certainly correct. This is an oddity which I enjoyed very much, but not enough for a revisit (which would have resulted in a five star rating from me). I recommend it highly, though, to 20th century German and Russian history fans and this is NOT to be missed by Nabokov fans. One might think that Vladimir didn't like his younger brother, Sergey, because of Sergey's sexual preference, but that's not true at all. The "truth"? It's here, perhaps, and like I said, if you're a Nabokov fan, you must read this to find out (maybe)!
April 25, 2012
This is a remarkable, and remarkably enjoyable, book. I never imagined I'd trip so easily along with the gay brother of Nabokov's "narration" of the end of the Russian world and onslaught of Bolsheviks and Soviets, the early years of the 20th century in Oxford and Paris, and the harrowing truth of WWII. But I did. I loved every description of genteel Russia, or anxious expat Oxford or Paris with equal, utter belief. His family and sexuality tethered it all, without salaciousness, to a very human experience. So human, in fact, that when the final moment of the book arrived, it felt as purely truthful as anything I have read.
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