Nabokov's Dozen: A Collection of Thirteen Stories‏

by Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov's Dozen (1958) a collection of 13 short stories by Vladimir Nabokov previously published in American magazines. (Nine of them also previously appeared in Nine Stories.)
All were later reprinted within The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.
Spring in Fialta --
Forgotten poet --
First love --
Signs and symbols --
Assistant producer --
Aurelian --
Cloud, castle, lake --
Conversation piece, 1945 --
"That in Aleppo once" --
Time and ebb --
Scenes from the life of a double monster --
Mademoiselle O. --
Lance.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Russia, Russian Literature, Literature, 20th Century

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the stories are so different but all of them are a filigree of refined language. The title story Spring in Fialta – a nostalgic reminiscence of a frustrated love – is an especially beautiful baroque vignette.

We lingered there as if listening to something; Nina, who stood on higher ground, put a hand on my shoulder and smiled, and carefully, so as not to crumple her smile, kissed me. With an unbearable force, I relived (or so it now seems to me) all that had ever been between us beginning with a similar kiss; and I said (substituting for our cheap, formal “thou” that strangely full and expressive “you” to which the circumnavigator, enriched all around, returns), “Look here – what if I love you?” Nina glanced at me, I repeated those words, I wanted to add… but something like a bat passed swiftly across her face, a quick, queer, almost ugly expression, and she, who would utter coarse words with perfect simplicity, became embarrassed; I also felt awkward… “Never mind, I was only joking,” I hastened to say, lightly encircling her waist.

But the recollections and the strong rapport of the past and the present are common for all the stories.

The objects that are being summoned assemble, draw near from different spots; in doing so, some of them have to overcome not only the distance of space but that of time: which nomad, you may wonder, is more bothersome to cope with, this one or that, the young poplar, say, that once grew in the vicinity but was cut down long ago, or the singled-out courtyard which still exists today but is situated far away from here?

The Visit to the Museum is a weird surrealistic tale, Tyrants Destroyed is an allegory of despotic power, Lik is a parable of an impersonated evil, Cloud, Castle, Lake is about a tyranny of banality and conformity, Lips to Lips is a derisive outlook on graphomania…
So frequently our fate comes in a strange disguise.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all know Nabokov from works such as Lolita and Speak, Memory, but how is he as a short story writer? Excellent of course, although anytime you are presented with 13 stories your reaction to some will be “mixed.” And this collection is a mixed bag in style and quality with short stories, essays, memoirs. One piece, “Lance,” is a work of science fiction about a space traveler.

“Cloud, Castle, Lake” is Kafkaesque: a man wins a train trip excursion through Germany and the other travelers bully and torment him.

In “Spring in Fialta” a man and a woman keep running into each other over the years in various capitals of Europe. This is a haunting story with a tragic ending based on the theme of “…what was the purpose of fate in bringing us constantly together.”

Nabokov scatters reflections upon writing in the stories. Here’s one I liked from “Spring in Fialta:” “Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a writer; personally I could never understand what was the good of thinking up books, of penning things that had not really happened in some way or other…” In “Mademoiselle O,” a piece in homage to his nanny, he has a passage about how when he “lends” a real item from his past to a character in his writings, it starts to fade in importance from his own life and becomes more identified with its fictional use.

Some things never change. “That in Aleppo Once…” has a passage about refugees, two women and a child, trying to dig a grave with a stick and their hands to bury the father or grandfather who had been accompanying them.

There are butterflies of course; “The Aurelian” is a tragic story of a man who owns a shop for butterfly collectors and spends his entire life dreaming of an exotic trip to collect specimens.

These pieces are from the late 1930’s to the late 1950’s when the author was in Berlin and Paris, then Boston (Wellesley College) and then Ithaca (Cornell).

As always with Nabokov, you need your dictionary at hand or on-line. For example within a few pages I looked up ecchymotic, susurrus and entoptic.

Quite a mixture, but all in all, good stories, well worth reading.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am fond of it because I feel it in the hollow of those violaceous syllables the sweet dark dampness of the most rumpled of small flowers, and because the alto like name of a lovely Crimean town is echoed by its viola; and also because because there is something in the very somnolence of its humid Lent that especially anoints one's soul.

With this story, he made me love the springtime in Fialta. Now I see why critics have argued that this story is Nabokov's lament on a lost love, an extramarital affair he had, or an ode to Russia. But really, why make assumptions because an author chooses to tell a story using the first-person, 'I?'

The pulse of the distant sea, panting in the mist…the jealous green of bottle glass bristling along the top of a wall.

This is all love language. Nabokov's control of prose is stunning, as usual. Though some of these short stories are not what you would expect from an average short-story collection, one only has to think of Lolita to be reminded that Nabokov never writes what is expected.

The stories are dense but opulent; with themes of loneliness, sadness, exile, memory, and self-struggle present. The characters' innermost thoughts are aggrandized, becoming a part of the setting, the story, the place. Melancholy is paired with happiness and relief in the most unusual ways.

There is also sex in its subtle, literary form:

Her eyes rested on the lower part of my face as if she were lip reading, and after a moment of reflection, she turned and rapidly swaying on slender ankles led me along the sea-blue carpeted passage.

Nabokov places no limitations on his female characters. Nina is spunky and carefree, and yet you see the struggle that both characters must face because they are being--well, too carefree.

I did not yet realize the presence of the growing morbid pathos which was to embitter so my subsequent meetings with Nina, I was probably quite as collected and carefree as she was…

Nina is a breath of fresh air. She was beautiful, flawed, good, kind, and selfish. All those things and more that you want to see in a realistic female character. So much so, that the main character saw her as a friend and lover, unable to properly categorize her; unable to be more, yet unwilling to be less:

Again and again she hurriedly appeared in the margins of my life, without influencing in the least its basic text.

[Annelies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got the taste for his books now. Ready to read more by Nabokov.

[Gabrielle Grosbety · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of this collection I can most strongly speak to "Spring in Fialta" itself. “Spring in Fialta” chronicles the story of Victor, an unreliable, first-person narrator, who falls in love with a lady named Nina. There is something confused, inappropriate, and delusional about the way that he loves her because the reader never completely learns what she is thinking or feels about him directly, but rather through subtleties of her etiquette and response or lack thereof toward him, which suggest a lack of reciprocity.

Parts of their story are told through flashbacks and their meetings are compared to the layout of Russian fairytales. Every time Victor sees her again he goes on a journey back into the past into each of his and Nina’s chance encounters, and that leads up to their current, final encounter in Fialta.

Every time they meet, though, Nina never acts like their relationship is two-sided, she seems to regard him half-heartedly, distantly, and aloofly before any sort of recognition plays out over her features, while he continually seems to cling on to the idea that she harbors secret deeper feelings for him.

He also tends to exert a sense of control and possessiveness over her by thinking he has the authority to decide who she spends time with. There is also nothing to substantiate the claims that they have an actual romantic connection, but rather only a romantic connection that has been built up in his head because whenever anything romantic happens it always usually has to do with the subtext of how he interprets it rather than her actual actions and behaviors.

However, throughout there is also a noticeable obsession that also intensifies in Victor with not only getting to Nina, but to figuring her out, because she is an enigma or at least that’s what Victor crafts her into. Even though there is a lot about her on display and she loosely flaunts herself and is boldly expressive and sensual, she’s also paradoxically private and inaccessible because the real human being is never fully uncovered or revealed because that would make her mortal and she’s never mortal until the very bitter end.

It is set up as a type of clues and Victor revisiting the past to dig up these clues because there comes to be an immersive, seductive type of drama to her mystery. The narrative structure parallels her character because fragments of memory are an elusive medium just like Nina is an elusive character, she’s not linear and easy to figure out.

An added layer of complication to this quality comes because Victor has the tendency to misinterpret her and her actions, so any sort of more objective reality will always be subjectively skewed, which makes the story that much more fascinating through the lens of such distortion because as we know Nabokov loves to play games.

But by the end of the story Nina no longer has to perform and Victor no longer has to watch and there's something to this exposure that is incredibly powerful and magnetically riveting.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by a single author can often be a mixed blessing, unless the author is one Vladimir Nabokov, in which case the results are always interesting, and occasionally brilliant., Nabokov's Dozen has two stories I loved, the best being the first story, "Spring in Fialta," about a lovely girl who comes into and vanishes from the author's life -- several times. (It strongly reminds me of several birds of passage in my life.)

Also fascinating is the last story, "Lance," which is a perfect satire on science fiction stories:

I utterly spurn and reject so-called "science fiction." I have looked into it, and found it as boring as the mystery-story magazines -- the same sort of dismally pedestrian writing with oodles of dialogue and loads of commutational humor. The clichés are, of course, disguised; essentially, they are the same throughout all cheap reading matter, whether it spans the universe or the living room

And then Nabokovc proceeds to give himself the lie by writing a fascinating tale of interstellar exploration.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I half-expected a Nabokovian dozen to contain one less than the norm, but no, I did the old trickster a disservice - like a baker's round dozen, this collection of assorted short stories contains a generous thirteen of the things.

The first of them, the tale of a spasmodic affair of stolen moments between two married Russian exiles across twelve years and called 'Spring in Fialta' is simply wonderful, full of the idiosyncratically caressing prose that only Nabokov can conjure up. In sporting parlance, it's worth the price of admittance on its own.

In 'A Forgotten Poet' the reputation of a rustic wordsmith thought dead for fifty years is resurrected by the dubious revisionism of a new, revolutionary generation, only for the celebrations to be rendered ridiculous when he turns up again out of the blue. If it is him.

'Signs and Symbols', seemingly about an old couple visiting their paranoid son in a sanitarium, is no doubt much cleverer in design than I could work out, but I enjoyed it anyway. Likewise 'Time and Ebb' which could almost be considered a science fiction story, and contains this exceptional description of a child's impression of his mother, who died when he was still an infant:
'I can only recall her as a vague patch of delicious lachrymal warmth just beyond the limit of iconographical memory.'

Somewhat incredibly (to me), 'Lance' is also a science fiction story, albeit 'strictly an amateur performance, with quite casual stage properties and a minimum of scenery'.

'That in Aleppo once...' and 'Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster' in turn focus on two of Nabakov's constant themes - the first delusion, the second the idea of the 'double'.
I liked the story of a madman who or may not have been married to a madwoman for a short while, but the story of Siamese twins conjoined at the navel was a little too obvious for me.

Of the rest, two of them later formed part of his autobiography, 'Speak, Memory'. 'First Love' tells of exactly that, while 'Mademoiselle O' is about the Swiss governess he and his brother had for several years.
The writing of these two pieces appear more sincere than his usual way, which you would expect, but could he really recall so vividly such detailed scenes experienced through five year old eyes? Who cares, they are so exquisite.

A final word for his closing statement in the Bibliographical Note at the end of my edition. He confirms that the above two stories are true to life, then concludes:
'As to the rest, I am no more guilty of imitating 'real life' than 'real life' is responsible for plagiarizing me.'

Well said, Vlad.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicately and wonderfully worded. Nabokov is a true artist.

[Liza Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe that should be four? I’m not sure— quite enjoyed these stories.

The last lines on the last page: “As to the rest, I am no more guilty of imitating ‘real life’ than ‘real life’ is responsible for plagiarizing me.”

p.90.“We both, Vasili Ivanovich and I, have always been impressed by the anonymity of all the parts of a landscape, so dangerous for the soul, the impossibility of ever finding out where the path you see leads - and look, what a tempting thicket! It happened that on a distant slope or in a gap in the trees there would appear and, as it were, stop for an instant, like air retained in the lungs, a spot so enchanting - a lawn, a terrace - such perfect expression of tender well-meaning beauty - that it seemed that if one could stop the train and go thither, forever, to you, my love ... But a thousand beech trunks were already madly leaping by, whirling in a sizzling sun pool, and again the chance for happiness was gone.”

p.128. “for we lived in the era of Identification and Tabulation; saw the personalities of men and things in terms of names and nicknames and did not believe in the existence of anything that was nameless.”

p.?.“and then nothing but a lone star remained in the sky, like an asterisk leading to an undiscoverable footnote.”

p.153. “And all the time I am in acute distress, desperately trying to coax sleep, opening my eyes every few seconds to check the faded gleam and imagining paradise as a place where a sleepless neighbour reads an endless book by the light of an eternal candle.”

[Mounica Sarla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nabokov cheated God when he penned this story. Love like this is supposed to be felt and not expressed, mostly because it cannot be expressed; that's partly what adds to its allure. Even if one tries, they would tell you that their attempt is a poor copy of what they felt. And yet, Nabokov, page after page, line after line, narrates a love story that is uncommon and yet so commonly done to death. Only here, he makes every word count to reproduce that feeling, and in my opinion, he absolutely nails it.

[Anneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

FINALLY finished this. I purchased Nabokov’s Dozen at Codex the other winter when it was already on its way to falling apart. My copy is a total wreck right now and the cover is folded over and split, the spine is crumbling, and many pages are dislocating themselves from it or are otherwise so brittle that they have torn from being turned. However! The Penguin Classics edition is worth it enough for me just based on cover design alone. That Nabokov illustration with the butterfly net is stupendous! I had no idea he was a professor of zoology at Harvard but it makes total sense. He could do it all!

As for the writing itself — Nabokov is one of those writers who makes you feel as if you’ve been left out of some higher and more erudite plane of perception which you will probably never reach alone. Each sentence is an invention and a gift that makes you aware of language’s dynamism. For instance, I’m still thinking about how he used heartbeats to measure physical distance, and how he categorized a woman’s double or triple chins by their relative reflection of her character. There are such wonderful clauses, even, that keep you thinking well beyond they’re read. I would often go back to reread paragraphs in this collection to savor them a little longer, when after a few moments their brilliance flared into view yet again. There’s something delightful and delicious about being oblivious to these silent writerly machinations and then somehow reminded once more of their ingenuity.

Short story collections tend to leave me feeling scattered, as they are wont to do. Nabokov’s Dozen is no exception. I wasn’t so into the science fiction piece and some of these were misses for me, but I especially enjoyed “Spring in Fialta”, “Conversation Piece, 1945”, “Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster” and “Mademoiselle O”. Perhaps this is recency bias but I’m partial to the discussion about WWII in “Conversation Piece, 1945.” It reminds me so much about how we’re thinking about truth and violence now in Gaza, at a moment in which the atrocities are so obviously historically significant and yet some people refuse to acknowledge what’s going on as a genocide. This willful hatred foments in insular groups that can safely admonish the world by choosing to fraternize only with each other. The intrusion of an outsider (the narrator) disrupts this comfortability, and Nabokov handles this tension tactfully with the whole idea of being mistaken as the “evil namesake” whose life comes to meet yours. Likewise, we are all confronting the hypocrisies of ourselves and our nations, without sufficient recourse for voicing or truly addressing these concerns beyond our limited personhood. A mix-up like this provides a novel context for exploring these challenges and interrogating whether evil is contained within vs without.

This is the only book I’ve read by Nabokov besides Lolita. It was nice to encounter his work in a less perverted way and with so much stylistic/subject variation. I can’t believe English isn’t even his first language. I still feel like I’m too dumb for his writing but I’m coming back to it nonetheless. Maybe one day you’ll see me on here reading Pale Fire or Pnin…

[Siv30 · Rating 4 out of 5]

לפעמים החיים הם כמיהה אחת ארוכה לרגע אחד. לנקודה. בכל יום, כשאנו פוקחים עיניים, אנו בעצם מתכווננים ומתכוננים לרגע הזה. חיים עבור אותה נקודה, במלוא היכולת והכוונה, וכשהרגע מגיע, אנחנו פתאום מגלים שבעצם התממשותו השאירה אותנו מרוקנים, חסרים את המוטיבציה שהניעה אותנו לקום בבוקר. בסיפורים הקצרים של נאבוקוב, הרגע הזה כל כך שואב את הדמויות שהן פשוט מתות. פעם אחר פעם מצאתי עצמי מופתעת, גם כשזיהיתי את התבנית שחותרת תחת הרצון לחיים של הדמויות נשארתי להתחבט עם הלמה, שאף פעם אינו ברור ופשטני כמו שאני מנסה להציג כאן. נאבוקוב מעמיד מראה על גרמניה שלפני המלחמה: רצונות לא ממומשים, דיכוי כלכלי, אלימות, חוסר סבלנות, אפרוריות, כאב של חברה (כאורגן) קרועה, פגועה, חבולה, המתענה לחיים אחרים טובים ושלמים יותר. הפרטים משלימים את הפאזל השלם ומהווים תמונה שלמה. באופן אבסורדי הספר נקרא ;"תריסר רוסי", מעין התרסה בולטת ומנגידה בין התוכן (שרובו ככולו עוסק בגרמניה או ברוסים שהיגרו לגרמניה או ביחסים שבין דמויות גרמניות לרוסיות) למהות, המעמידה את התרבות הרוסית שכביכול יציבה מול זו הגרמנית המעורערת, הרודפת אחר "פרפרים" של חופש וחלומות בלתי מציאותיים. למעשה גם התרבות הרוסית מאבדת את האחיזה ומתערערת. הערכים הישנים מתפוררים ואינם יכולים לשמש מנוף לחיים פוריים ומאושרים במערב. 2 סיפורים אהבתי במיוחד בקובץ: "פילגראם", ו"חדל אישים". שניהם עומדים על גבול התעתוע והדמיון ומדגימים את האובדן הטוטאלי: "למען האושר הזה אסף פרוטה לפרוטה, אבל היה כמי שמעמיד ספל תחת קילוח של נוזל יקר ערך, המטפטף טיפין - טיפין, ואך ייאסף מעט בספל, וכבר נשמט זה מן היד: הכל נשפך, ויש להתחיל מבראשית. הוא נשא אשה, מקווה לנדוניה נאה, אך כעבור שבוע מת חותנו, ולא הניח אחריו חובות..." (פילגראם, 12) נאבוקוב אינו פשוט לקריאה. השפה שלו מלאה דימויים שלעיתים לא מתפענחים אלא לאחר קריאה של מספר סיפורים. נדרשת מהקורא הכרה מינימאלית של התקופה וריכוז לפרטים שמרכיבים את התמונה. מאידך מצאתי בחלק מהסיפורים הקצרים עונג מפתיע ווירטואוזיות לשמה. "תריסר רוסי", ולאדימיר נאבוקוב הספריה החדשה, 1994, 157 עמ` תרגום נילי מירסקי

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a guy who plays favourites. Music, art and everything else, my preferences change with my mood and the weather. Ask who my favourite author is though and the answer will be, every time, Vladimir Nabokov.

Many of the short stories in this book don't have particularly gripping plots, but at this length they don't really need to. Instead, they exhibit everything that made Nabokov an unparalleled writer; vivid descriptions of people, places, and things which make them spring to life in the reader's imagination, sweeping flourishes that border on poetry, and that understated but very deliberate comedic tonic to bitter situations. The highlight of the set for me was Spring In Fialta, a beautiful, sad reflection on the relationship between two people who are more than friends but less than lovers.

[Marieke · Rating 1 out of 5]

fucking hell

[Geoffrey Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories are simple, more or less obvious tales of slight emotional impact, but constructed artfully and with exceptionally rich vocabulary and phrasing. They merit frequent re-readings — not because they are at all difficult to understand or complex (which they are not) but because the flowing rhythm of their sounds and images is so pleasing, making re-reading like listening again to a favorite symphony. A couple are total fantasies, barely brushing any real lived experience, one in the imaginary resort of "Fialta", another, "Lance," in a hallucinatory and multilayered time (several millennia hence?) and deep outer space, overlapping with the here-and-now of mid-twentieth century mid-America. Even these are occasion for wry social commentary, on adultery, frustration and lost opportunity in "Spring in Fialta" and on the craft of commercial fiction in "Lance," where I especially liked this remark by the narrator as he tries and fails to recall a particular face:
"All I manage to glimpse is an effect of melting light on one side of her misty hair, and in this, I suspect, I am insidiously influenced by the standard artistry of modern photography and I feel how much easier writing must have been in former days when one's imagination was not hemmed in by innumerable visual aids, and a frontiersman looking at his first giant cactus or his first high snows was not necessarily reminded of a tire company's pictorial advertisement."
This was written in 1952! How much more insidious has become the effect of all the imagery that bombards us today.
It's hard to write fresh, perhaps even impossible to escape all the trite phrases and images stored in our memory. Nevertheless, and knowing this, Nabokov tries harder than most popular authors, resorting to rhetorical surprise to force his readers to look again. He accomplishes this by his use of unexpected and unusual adjectives and nouns that require us to stop, if only for a nanosecond, to think on what is truly being invoked.
Nabokov wrote and published several of these stories originally in Russian, and at least one ("Mademoiselle O") in French, to later translate them into English (in the case of "Mademoiselle O" with the acknowledged assistance of Hilda Ward), while the others were written and published originally in English; he also had more than a passing acquaintance with German (he lived in Berlin for 15 years, as you might guess from the stories "Cloud, Castle, Lake" and "The Aurelian"). Thus his linguistic resources and appreciation of the peculiar virtues of each language were quite exceptional.
There are two stories here that I have already read more than once and will surely enjoy reading again, the only two which "are (except for a change of names) true in every detail to the author's remembered life," as he tells us in a Biographical Note: "Mademoiselle O" and "First Love." Nabokov tells us he was 6 when Mlle. O arrived at his parents' house, some 50 miles from Saint Petersburg, which would have been 1905, a year of revolution. "First Love" takes place only four years later, and recounts a marvelous train voyage all the way from Saint Petersburg to the beach at Biarritz. The remembered first sensations of a child, not yet contaminated by all the influences of custom and advertising, make these stories seem truly fresh, and the tentative and contradictory emotions of the child rhyme with my own, and thus sound truly authentic.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of 13 stories, remembrances, and essays has a little something for everyone and makes a good introduction to Nabokov rather than trying his full length novels from the outset (which I am yet to do). These stories show his diversity of writing ranging from beautiful tales about fate, such as Spring in Fialta where two people's paths keep crossing regardless of where they tred, to the disturbing Cloud, Castle, Lake (which I had to read twice) that follows a man who won a place on a excursion through Germany but is bullied and mistreated the entire time for no apparant reason. There are also some tragic pieces included, namely That in Aleppo Once… that tells of refugees and their desperate attempts to bury their lost father/grandfather using only their hands and sticks, and The Aurelian which tells of a butterfly collector getting ready to embark on a trip of a lifetime but who doesn't quite make it. Nabokov, like other Russian authors, isn't always explicit in his wording or style and some stories do require rereading and a dictionary to hand but the effort is worth it as these stories capture something of what it is to be human.

[ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the long weeks I was reading this, I learned that Nabokov was a synesthete. Which sure explains a lot of the language and diction in each of his short stories; there were plenty of gorgeous descriptors and little flourishes of prose that could have only come from a brilliantly imaginative mind that also wished to expand the imaginations of others.

The only thing that tends to hold back Nabokov, I think, is his pacing. Multiple times I felt his style often restrains the punchline shotgun of the short story, only to have it dropped on you in the last few paragraphs with little to no resolution (or the suddenness being the resolution itself, perhaps). Others have no punchline at all, and while it makes for a good statement from a clearly accomplished author, it makes for a bit of unsatisfying (and therefore difficult) reading.

Favourites from this collection include: 'Spring in Fialta,' 'Signs and Symbols,' 'The Aurelian' (my favourite of the baker's dozen), and 'Lance.'

[Marika_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Feralna trzynastka” to zbiór trzynastu (zaskoczenie!) opowiadań Nabokova. I chyba dotąd nie czytałam jego krótkich form (? przynajmniej tak twierdzi moja pamięć), ale warto, bardzo warto było sięgnąć. Przeczytałam je w kilka dni, ale to tego typu zbiór, który można czytać z doskoku wybierając sobie tekst do czytania losowo, bo nie są ze soba powiązane. I takie opowiadania to według mnie bardzo dobry sposób na tzw. zastoje czytelnicze czy też zwyczajne zmęczenie, które nie pozwala się skupić na śledzeniu dłuższej fabuły.

Znajdziecie tu opowiadanie o trudnym acz czarującym romansie, miłości pojawiającej się i znikającej na przestrzeni kilkunastu lat (i ze znakomicie wykreowaną kobiecą bohaterką!). Jest też takie o ekscentrycznym kolekcjonerze motyli całe życie marzącym o podróżach w najdalsze zakątki świata, by odkrywać najbardziej egzotyczne okazy. Albo to w klimacie największych mistrzów rosyjskiej prozy o surowej francuskiej guwernantce opiekującej się dziećmi z zamożnego rosyjskiego domu.
Te wspomniane wyżej trzy utwory to „Wiosna we Fialcie”, „Pilgram” oraz „Mademoiselle”, dodajmy do tego „Zapomnianego poetę” i „Że gdy raz w Aleppo” i macie moje ulubione opowiadania z „Feralnej trzynastki”.

Nabokov to malarz słowa z niesamowitym warsztatem i detalicznym spojrzeniem, jego proza jest gęsta i treściwa, ale jednoczenie prosta, bez zbędnych ozdobników i udziwnień. I Trzynastka ma też coś co bardzo lubię w zbiorach, czyli różnorodność nie tylko fabularna, ale też stylowa czy konstrukcyjna. Czytajcie Nabokova!

[Cintia Andrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Não tem pra ninguém, o domínio da escrita do homem é tão absoluto que dá vontade de arrancar as páginas e comer, sei lá (review inspirada nesta história aqui).

[Phi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luminous collection. Nabokov's lucid and hypersensitive, microscopic prose is displayed in the delicacies of short stories. My copy is beautiful, wonderfully bound, its cover wrapped by white linen and embossed with indigo pattern of butterflies.

[محمد عبدالمحسن · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I found it a little bit hard for me maybe cause' I'm not that into drama this much, but it was fun to read and to explore Nabokov's world. Maybe I'd give it another shot some other time.

[Rebekka Vandeputte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastische verzameling van nostalgisch- absurdistische korte tragedies. Daarnaast een fijne introductie als mijn eerste Nabokov boek.

[Nishat · Rating 5 out of 5]

impeccable

[Hana Zet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poznáte Vladimira Nabokova? Áno, jasné! A poznáte Nabokova aj inak ako cez Lolitu?
Nedávno som kdesi čítala, že je obrovská škoda, že takého talentovaného spisovateľa ako bol Nabokov mnoho čitateľov obmedzí na jedinú knihu. Zaujalo ma to, a tak som pri nákupe v antikvariáte hodila do košíka aj Jaro ve Fialtě, zbierku štyroch poviedok, cez ktoré som sa rozhodla tvorcu Lolity spoznať inak a lepšie.
Nuž a na stránkach Jara ve Fialtě som spoznala vzdelaného, vtipného, ironického muža s veľkým citom pre tvorenie krásnych viet.

"V dětství toho víme hodně o rukou lidí, neboť se vznášejí a žijí na úrovni našeho vzrůstu..."


V poviedkach Jaro ve Fialtě Nabokov spomína na svoje destvo v Rusku, na svoju francúzsku opatrovateľku, na prvú detskú lásku. Ale najviac som sa dojímala pri poslednej, podľa ktorej je pomenovaná kniha. V príbehu zvláštnej a nenaplnenej lásky (nie je takmer vždy jedno podmienkou druhého?) ma Nabokov chvíľami dostával do kolien.

"Znovu a znovu se uspěchaně objevovala na okrajích stránek mého života, aniž v nejmenším ovlyvnila jeho základní text. Jednoho letního rána (bylo to v pátek, jelikož služky klepaly koberce na sluncem zalitém dvoře), když moje rodina odjela na venkov a já se povaloval v posteli a kouřil, zničehonic zuřivě zařinčel zvonek - a vzápětí stála v předsíni, kam doslova vtrhla, a po odchodu u nás nechala (mimoděk) vlásenku a (především) velký lodní kufr, iluminovaný nálepkami hotelu, který ji po čtrnácti dnech vyzvedl sympatický mladý Rakušan, jenž (podle neurčitých, avšak nepochybných příznaku) patřil k témuž kosmopolitnému klubu, jehož členem jsem byl i já. Občas, uprostřed nějakého rozhovoru padlo její jméno a ona seběhla po schodech náhodné věty, aniž se ohlédla."

Veľká radosť a spokojnosť sa vo mne rozlievala, keď som hltala túto útlu knižku. A zároveň som si uvedomovala, že po spisovateľoch ako Vladimir Nabokov už nebude cesty späť. Pridal sa k tým, čo mi otvárajú dvere do sveta kvalitnej literatúry a nútia ma ohŕňať nosom tam, kde by som ešte nedávno bola spokojná.

Ak vás čo len trochu zaujala Lolita, čítajte aj naďalej Nabokova.
A ak sa vám nepáčila, nezavrhujte ešte Nabokova.
V jednom i druhom prípade totiž môžete zažiť veľmi príjemné prekvapenie.

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good collection, such unique stories and characters, although a couple of them were a bit dull ngl. But really beautiful prose overall which is what I signed up for. Probably a 3.5/5 overall, but heres my individual ratings:

* spring in fialta - 5/5
* a forgotten poet - 2.5/5
* first love - 3/5
* Signs and symbols - 5/5
* The assistant producer - 2.5/5
* The Aurelian - 3.5/5
* Cloud, castle, lake - 4/5
* Conversation piece, 1945 - 2.5/5
* ‘That in Aleppo once…’ - 4/5
* Time and ebb - 3/5
* Scenes from the life of a double monster - 3.5/5
* Mademoiselle O - 4/5
* Lance - 4/5

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nabokov was a writer's writer; a grand master of the written word. Nowhere else have I seen such concentrated genius (John Banville comes close). I had to cut my reading speed in half to work through the density of this writing; every word perfectly chosen - every scene and character imaginatively described with incredibly insightful and telling detail. As for plot, the author conjures a series of scenes rather than telling a story, though a story does emerge. Of course I liked some of the stories more than others; my favorites were Spring in Fialta and The Aurelian. For glimpses of old Russia I liked A Forgotten Poet, and for the Stalinist era, The Assistant Producer. For hilarious character sketches, Conversation Piece takes the prize. In short, I found nearly all of the stories richly rewarding.

[Rebecka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is really a collection of masterpieces. So many short stories by other authors are either boring or overly dramatic and lacking in depth. These are all perfect. Every story has its reason for existing, they are all important no matter what topic they focus on, and they are all very impressive. I really love Nabokov for focusing on how horrible human beings are (that would be the red thread of this volume), and for showing it in so many different ways. He is constantly touching on the same topic, but he never writes the same story twice.

The downside would be that Nabokov is damned hard to read in Russian.

[Sevim Tezel Aydın · Rating 3 out of 5]

"One is always at home in one's past…"

The collection features thirteen beautiful stories that explore themes of memory, recollections, exile, loneliness, and confusion. Nabokov emphasizes the strong connection between the past and the present in his narratives. While the plots may not be particularly gripping, I was drawn to his lonely and melancholic characters and the complex moods he conveys through a blend of conflicting emotions. My favorite is First Love, it's perfect...

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master storyteller, passionate lepidopterist, patriotic emigré and all-around HEARTTHROB that was Vladimir Nabokov amazes and mystifies again with each these short stories. Particular favourites: First Love, Spring in Fialta, and Lance (based on his mountaineering son). Some of his other stories not found in this edition are also worth tracking down: Beneficence, Details of a Sunset, the Thunderstorm.

[Jelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een overmaat aan fine-dining voorgerechten, maar dan van taal – indrukwekkend en ongeëvenaard, maar je wordt toch gelukkiger van af en toe een pasta. Door de hoeveelheid en diversiteit van de verhalen, was het moeilijk om momentum te behouden en het boek een keer uit te lezen. Toch een leuke inkijk in Nabokov als schrijver en persoon!