سرزمین دروغین

by Vladimir Nabokov, پرستو عراقی (Translator)

'The woods were gradually thinning. I was tormented by strange hallucinations. I gazed at the weird tree trunks, around some of which were coiled thick, flesh-coloured snakes; suddenly I thought I saw, between the trunks, as though through my fingers, the mirror of a half-open wardrobe...'

These three stories of menace, magic and melancholy display Vladimir Nabokov's astonishing range and inventiveness. Whether describing an escape across a surreal tropical landscape, a fateful meeting or an unexpected - and threatening - return, each tale shows his dazzling sleight of hand, intellectual playfulness and fantastical imagination.

This book includes Terra Incognita, Spring in Fialta and The Doorbell.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Russia, Literature, Russian Literature, Modern Classics

56 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

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

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as strong and satirical as his novels, but quite enjoyable nonetheless, this book contains three short stories:
-Terra Incognita
-Spring in Fialta
-The Doorbell

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing about Nabokov, whether it be a little a known short story or a famous novel, I am always in awe of his writings regardless of subject matter. He is fascinating in ways not many writers can match in the way he describes what may seem to others to be the most mundane and insignificant things. Nabokov's imagery in Terra Incognita is really good, even though only one of the three stories really grabbed me. The stories, Terra Incognita, Spring in Fialta and The Doorbell, feature peril and sadness, in an escape in the tropics, a fateful meeting and a return of the fearsome kind. each tale shows his dazzling talent. Terra Incognita was the stand out, The Doorbell was second, Spring in Fialta was OK, the stories might not be his best, but there isn't a drop in the quality of his language. 3.5/5

[Liz Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Want to read Nabokov but are not sure about starting with such a story as Lolita? Well, this is a very good introduction to him. Many people begin by reading his long novels, but a lot of Nabokov's magic comes from his style and word choice, which can be seen in his short stories as well, so I always tell people to begin with them instead of his longer works, they are slightly less problematic/traumatizing.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Superb style but the stories didnt really do it for me. I liked the second one, about Nina, the best.

[Abeselom Habtemariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a charming little collection of short stories by the remarkable Vladimir Nabokov. Terra Incognita, Spring in Fialta and The Doorbell are the three stories that make up this edition. Each story reverberates with its own identity and vitality.

Terra incognita is a story of phantasmic tropical figures in ‘’Badonia’’ narrated by the febrile Vallière. It has been said, Nabokov modelled the character Vallière after Sidney Davidson from H.G. Wells’ short story, The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes. In wells’ tale, Sidney Davidson’s eyes are able to see visions of a distant rocky island, even when his eyes, along with the rest of his body, reside in London. A result of what Wells calls ‘’A dissertation on theoretical kinds of space’’. Vallière, on the other hand, experiences a tropical hell together with interjections of a sickbed with a fading man on it. It’s hard to know which experience is the real one and which one is hallucinatory. The dividing line between the two worlds is ‘’ambiguous transparency’’. It’s up to the reader to decide on which reality to adopt.

Written in Nabokov’s Berlin days, Spring in Fialta is an émigré tale. Just like the dreary spring days in Fialta, it’s a sombre and melancholic little story of the sad Victor and the ever so transient Nina. It’s written in that idiosyncratic technique Nabokov loves to write with; a style bursting with adjective laden long sentences. Because of the beauty of the writing, the plot could be about almost anything and you’d still enjoy reading it. Having said that, I found the story itself to be captivating and the best of the three stories included in this book. Crammed with memories, infidelity and deprivation, It feels like it was a prelude to Nabokov’s latter works.

The concluding story in this collection is The Doorbell. Taking place in Berlin a few years after the Russian Civil War, it is a story of Nikolay Galatov and his reminiscences of a woman by the name of Olga Kind. The Doorbell is an experiment in beguiling the reader, building expectations only to deliver undramatic inferences of a climax.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vladimir Nabokov’un toplu öykülerinin ikinci cildi olan bu derleme, yazarın 1923-1937 yılları arasında yazdığı öykülerden oluşuyor. Nabokov’un hayatına bakarsak bu dönem bir tür sürgün dönemi aslında. Babasının siyasi görüşleri yüzünden Rusya’dan ayrılmak zorunda kalan yazar, önce üniversite eğitimi için Londra’ya gidiyor sonra da evlenerek Berlin’e yerleşiyor ve 1937’de önce Paris’e sonra da Amerika’ya göçene dek burada yaşıyor. Bu dönemde Göz, İnfaza Çağrı, Lujin Savunması gibi başarılı romanlar yazsa da bir tür arayış içinde olduğunu söylemek mümkün. Öyküler de bu arayıştan fazlasıyla nasibini alıyor. Yani alıştığımız Nabokov’a dair bazı izler görsek bile yazarın farklı şeyler düşündüğü, sesini bulup gürleştirmeye çalıştığı da hissediliyor. Şunu da belirtmem lazım, romanlarından alıştığımız evrenler oyun dolu ve katmanlı oldukları için, öykülerden klasik Nabokov tadını almak zaten çok mümkün değil. Kendisi de böyle düşünmüş olmalı ki 1-2 istisna dışında 1941’den sonra hiç yeni öykü yazmıyor; çıkan derlemelerin hepsi sürgün döneminde verdiği eserlerden oluşuyor. Tüm bunlara rağmen, öykülerinde araya serpiştirdiği zarif ve incelikli detaylarla sonraki dönemde yazacaklarının ipuçlarını veriyor bize.

Öykülere gelirsek hemen hepsi benzer temalarda dolaşıyor; hayal/gerçek ikilemi (belirsizliği), aşk (takıntı demek daha bile doğru belki), Çarlık Rusya’sına dair özlem (temelde eski zaman nostaljisi) ve ölüm (özellikle ansızın ölüm; 1922’de suikast sonucu öldürülen babasının ölümü gibi) kendilerine bolca yer buluyorlar. Aynı şekilde Nabokov’un satranç, şiir, etimoloji ve bilime dair ilgisi de kendini ufak ufak gösteriyor.

Kitaba adını veren “Terra Incognita”, Joseph Conrad’ın Karanlık Yüreği’ni andıran ve gerçekle hayalin iç içe geçtiği muazzam bir öykü. Aynı şekilde “Fialta’da İlkbahar”, “Bir Rus Güzeli”, “İmha Edilen Despotlar”, “Amirallik Sarmalı”, “Mükemmeliyet”, “Müzeyi Ziyaret”, “Müzik” ve “Çift Ucubenin Yaşamından Sahneler” de derlemenin öne çıkan öykülerinden.

Osman Yener’in önsözünden öğrendiğim üzere “Ultima Tule” ve “Solus Rex” gibi uzun öyküler ise yazarın başladığı ama devam ettirmediği roman açılışlarıymış. Birdenbire kesilmelerinden ve anlatımlarından bu anlaşılıyor zaten. Benzer bir hissi “Matmazel O.” öyküsü için de hissettim. Bu saydıklarımla herhangi bir bağ duygusal kurmak çok kolay değil.

Saydıklarım dışında kalan öyküler ise ortalama diyebileceğim, çok iz bırakmayacak türden öyküler. Benzer tekniğin ve sürprizlerin olması da okurken keyif kaçırıyor ama en başında dediğim gibi, bu öyküler bir arayış döneminin yansımaları. Böyle bakınca daha bile kıymetli geliyorlar.

Uzun lafın kısası, Nabokov külliyatına hakim okuyucu için bu öykülerde fark edilebilecek güzel detaylar, pırıltılı anlar var. Ancak yazarı ilk kez okuyacaksınız ya da üslubuna aşina değilseniz bence şimdilik öykülere bulaşmayın.

[Jackdaw ☄ Bronteroc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terra Incognita 🌟
Spring in Fialta 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
The doorbell 🌟

[Jelena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Postoji čudno i postoji Nabokov.
Od svih Rusa, Nabokov mi je omiljeni. Čovjek je mag magova. Bog otac.
Terra Incognita je igra. Igra stvarnosti. Šta je stvarno, a šta ne. Gdje je izlaz iz okova svakidašnjice (ukoliko shvatite šta je svakidašnjica). Terra Incognita je teritorija uma koju ne znamo i koju nikada nećemo saznati. To je mjesto gdje je sve moguće pa i dijenje ličnosti u stilu Dostojevskog (kojeg je Nabokov prezirao).
Zanimljiv spis, sem ako ga čitate na ruskom jer taj čovjek i riječi... Navodno se posmatra kao predložak za Poziv na pogbuljenje. Sve što se pojavilo tu, razradiće se kasnije u tom romanu.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each of the three short stories in this volume are entrancing in their own way. "Terra Incognita" is a bizarre kaleidoscope world, "Spring in Fialta" has the graceful melancholy of old-fashioned black and white European films, and "The Doorbell" is a disorientating, grotesque portrayal of detached mother and son. The one thing that these stories all had in common however, was that they were beautifully written. Nabokov's writing is the style of writing that makes me feel like I've been transported to another world, pure poetry in prose. However, I wanted more, and I feel it is in his full-length novels that he really shines. This collection is something I will definitely return to though, again and again. I feel the stories would benefit from a single, undisturbed sitting.

[مسعود · Rating 2 out of 5]

دو داستان خوب اگر دلتان برای قلم نابوکف تنگ شده باشد
اما ویرایش فاجعه ممکن است حالتان را بد کند! علائم سجاوندی بسیار آشفته و با فاصله از کلمه قبل و چسبیده به کلمات بعد بسیار در متن زیاد است.
جایی از متن نوشته شده: «خب وقته رفتنه» یعنی ماجرای ه-کسره به کتاب‌های چاپی هم (صدبار تاسف) رسیده است
زبان مترجم بین زبان گفتاری و نوشتاری کاملا سردرگم و آشفته است
حتی وسط کلمات فاصله‌های اضافه افتاده و نیمی از کلمه به سر سطر رفته است!
مثلا یک سطر این طور تمام شده: در لژیون خارجی خد
و سطر بعد این طور شروع شده: مت کرده بود!
کاش دست کم اسم ویراستار اول کتاب نخورده بود که آدم بگوید کتاب از اساس ویرایش نشده است!

[Nathan Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The titular piece is ruined by a hamfisted and ghastly bit of materialistic sermonizing. Dreadful. Though the colorful prose and imaginative stories save the rest of it.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nabokov is a man after my own heart with this collection (though incidentally I suspect these three short stories were grouped in this volume posthumously.) I can't find a scrap of evidence here to suggest that he is not completely uninhibited in his use of language, as he invents and repurposes words to suit, and bends one or two (frankly stupid) established rules of English grammar to his will and the discerning reader's delight. The benefit of a trilingual upbringing, perhaps.

Running almost contrary to the intricacy of his language, the content is remarkably direct and visceral. At times Nabokov renders the sensation of various notions with unashamedly synaesthetic expression - going so far at one point during 'Spring in Fialta' as to describe the physical bearing of his feelings relative to his person. I'm not sure how universal that (typically unuttered) experience is, but in that instance among others the author records some of the essential but obscure associations of the subconscious as though they were the kind of domestic minutiae you'd discuss over the washing-up.

So, a joy to read technically, but what about the stories themselves? I think they're great and I'd suggest leaving this review here for the sake of experiencing them blind. The first, 'Terra Incognita', is a short and nightmarish snapshot of doomed expedition and survival (or otherwise) - it stands alone in its sheer alienation from the experiences of most who will read it. The next two stories, 'Spring in Fialta' (the longest of the three) and 'The Doorbell' are far more mundane, although the numerous chance meetings in 'Fialta' soon begin to suggest a more symbolic interpretation rather than the catalogue of melancholy and missed opportunities as which it presents. I've chosen to take it at face value as that's beautiful enough. But, dealing as both stories do with somewhat confused personal relationships, some will find them infinitely more appealing than others. 'The Doorbell', almost as short as the titular story, drops the first-person narrative and so seems in some ways less fantastic than the other two, but is nonetheless a worthy exercise in experience-telling. To Nabokov a phrase.

Do read each story without interruption, and do take a break between each one as if you're at all like me your involvement in the previous story will spoil your sympathy for the new characters if you dive straight back in.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you might expect from Vladimir Nabokov, the writing is very beautiful, stunning even. The first story was superb but I found the second and third tough. The second story particularly was hard work to trawl through and I found myself enjoying the beautiful words but willing it to end. The third story is more interesting and not so long but still not up to the first story.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title story is a 14 page journey into the jungle almost as mesmerizing as Heart of Darkness in its language and imagery. If only the other two stories could live up to it.

[Liam Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

#1 - 5 stars
#2 - 2 stars
#3 - 2 stars

[Alex Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Nabokov is like allowing yourself to go outside and walk around in the rain, letting your shoes get wet, socks squishy, rivulets of rainwater dripping down from your hair into your eyes, and just being there, relishing every last second of it. Yeah, sometimes you can do that. And it's inexplicably life-affirming and as you feel the rain come pattering down on the crown of your head and inside your ears and gather in tiny puddles within your collarbones, some gentle quiet little voice inside you is telling you that this is a moment you'll never forget.

Sure, it's not something you'd want to do every day. And it's definitely not for everyone. But by god, is it amazing when you're there, in that moment.

Terra Incognita takes its title from the first story, which is a description, somewhere between cute and Kafka, of an intense fever dream. High quality, well done.

The golden snitch, the diamand-coated platinum treasure is the second story, "Spring in Fialta,": a masterpiece of dreamy nostalgia with vague echoes of Checkov's "The Lady With the Lapdog."

Still, "Spring in Fialta" would be just another story if not for Nabokov blowing us away with his writing.

I mean this is probably the greatest prose artist of the last century at his peak, absolutely humming away on full throttle, unleashing his mind-boggling talent, and yet never pushing it too far, keeping it wry, dreamy-yet-alarmingly precise, and even getting you to smile by poking fun at his characters and himself (pretty sure Vladimir planted himself in the story as "the Englishman".)

All the stars.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

"صدای آبشار بیشتر و بیشتر به سمت خفگی، پیش می رفت تا وقتی که سکوت آبشار را فرا گرفت، ما در حال عبور از وسط جنگل های دست نخورده ی نواحی کشف نشده بودیم. پای پیاده راه افتادیم و مدتی طولانی بود که در حرکت بودیم _در جلو گرگسن و من، و در عقب هم هشت تا باربر بومی می آمدند، پشت سرهم و یکی پس از دیگری، آشپز آخر از همه می آمد و هر قدمی که برمی داشت، غر می زد و شکایت می کرد. من می دانستم که گرگسن، آشپز را به خاطر اینکه یک شکارچی بومی سفارش او را کرده، استخدام کرده. آشپز اصرار می کرد که برای بیرون رفتن از زنارکی حاضره تا هر کاری انجام بده، جایی که آنها نصف سال را برای درست کردن نوشیدنی و نصف دیگر سال را برای نوشیدن آن صرف می کنند: این موضوع هم گنگ و نامشخص به قوت خود باقی ماند، به هر حال همان طوری که قدم می زدیم و پیش می رفتیم دلم می خواست خیلی چیزها را فراموش کنم، واقعا این آشپز کیه ( یک فراری، دریانورد، یا شاید؟ ) . گرگسن با گام هایی بلند کنار من حرکت می کرد، قوی، لاغر، با زانوهای لخت استخوانی. مدت زمان زیادی بود که تله ی سبز رنگِ پروانه ها را که شبیه پرچم بودند نگهداری کرده بود. باربرها مردانی بودند قوی هیکل، با موهایی پرپشت و قهوه ای براق و چشمانشان رنگ سبز آبی به سبک عربی داشت و ما به همراه آنها وارد زنارکی شدیم، باربرها با گامهایی محکم و منظم پیش می رفتند. "

[Yahya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nabakov'un öyküleri tuhaf. Bazen ne hissedeceğimi bilmiyorum. Bazı öykülerini okurken insan mest oluyor; keşke roman olsa bu diyor insan. Bazen sanki öyle ilginç teması oluyor ki, Nabakov öyküsü mü Cortazar mı emin olamıyorum. Ama ne olursa olsun o şiirsel diline bayılıyorum. İçimden diyorum ki bu adam isterse en iyi öyküleri de yazar. Bu kitaptaki en büyük favori öyküm de Fialta'da Bahar. Okurken iyi ki edebiyat var dediğim bir metin oldu bu öykü.

"Kaygılandım, çünkü güzel, narin ve tekrarı olmayan bir şey heba oluyordu: Kaba bir telaşla bu güzel şeyin sadece en parlak parçalarını almış, bana acıklı bir fısıltıyla ikram ettiği mütevazı fakat hakiki çekirdeği ihmal, hatta suistimal etmiştim."

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without particularly loving the subject matter, or even particularly remembering (only a few days after the fact) how the stories actually went, I found myself floored by the little descriptive passages - particularly in Spring in Fialta.

[Covey Mcallister · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last story from these three was my favorite, the self absorption of young men in contrast with the desperate flight from aging of their widowed or single mothers was very beautiful and poignant. The first story made me think of Hemingway, very dense masculinity. A nice read for an afternoon.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book to kill a couple of hours.

[Sílvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three short stories that mirror his novels: dramatic, melancholic, and beautifully written.

[thecarys · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 stars but spring in fialta deserves a whole star to itself

[chi ⭒ · Rating 4 out of 5]

terra incognita: 4
spring in fialta: 4,5
the doorbell: 4

love love love nabokov and i think this is a good entry to his work

[lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite was the second one, but surprisingly I enjoyed all three

[Richy Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. Particularly 'Spring in Fialta'. Full of Nabakov's idiosyncratic humour, surprising phrasing and ingenius prose.

[Misha Filippov · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Terra Incognita" is a bizarre kaleidoscope world, "Spring in Fialta" has the graceful melancholy of old-fashioned black and white European films, and "The Doorbell" is a disorientating, grotesque portrayal of detached mother and son. The one thing that these stories all had in common however, was that they were beautifully written. "Terra Incognita" is probably the best piece of literature that depicts tropics.

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

My other Pocket Penguin of the day also contains three stories, originally written in Russian and translated into English several years later by the author. Nabokov's writing is luminous in English and French, and presumably in his native Russian as well. He also knows how to craft a good story and his abilities are well demonstrated in this gem-like little collection.
The first story, "Terra Incognita" or unknown land, concerns a fantasy voyage across a tropical landscape. It is very short, but full of sharp imagery wedded to dreamlike impressions. It is perfection in fourteen pages.
The second story, "Spring in Fialta", is probably based on a real visit and possibly a true encounter, but is set in a fictional resort. It is a love story infused with memories, nostalgia and regrets for lost opportunities which can never now be realised, and it is beautiful. This is the longest story of the three and apparently Nabokov had some difficulty getting the English version published; I cannot understand why.
The final story of the trio is "The Doorbell", a wickedly funny little tale of a grown-up son reunited with his mother for the first time in many years. It is prosaic and the opposite of nostalgic, so acts as a counter to the other two stories and rounds of the collection with a touch of cynical wit. All three stories are perfect in their own way.

[Mark J Easton · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this bijou collection of three short stories–Terra Incognita, Spring in Fialta, and The Doorbell–Nabokov casts the reader into three distinctly different tales ranging from the abject terror of the unknown, through to a louche summertime of boredom, and finally a dissonant story of familial apathy.

The writing, being pure Nabokov, is exemplary, and the tales bear the master's hallmarks of neat craft and verve. Rather than plumbing deep into the realms of ideas, Nabokov expresses himself as much in the spaces between words as he does in the choreography of finely balanced metre that makes the stories easily accessible, bright and lithe.

This collection is reading for those that adore the immanence of writing, and as such makes a perfect escape into the rich world of words for those with little time to immerse themselves.

[Bárbara Moura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Desde que tive a oportunidade de ler Lolita que Vladimir Nabokov passou a ocupar um lugar na minha lista mental de escritores verdadeiramente extraordinários, pela habilidade no uso da palavra tanto para contar histórias como para criar personagens reais, com as quais criamos laços. Daí veio o meu interesse por este livro, pequeno para variar, mas com o estilo inconfundível de quem cria frases como moldaria barro. Fica a minha opinião sobre cada um dos contos.

Continue a ler a opinião aqui: http://bloguinhasparadise.blogspot.pt/2014/06/opiniao-terra-incognita-vladimir-nabokov.html