Nabokov in Three Years discussion

For such a relatively short book (less than 200 pages), I'm surprised at how long it took me to read it. Especially after the many delights of King, Queen, Knave. Possibly this may have been in the looser structure, where I frankly had no idea where the narrative was going; the episodic nature of the chapters gives no hint as to Luzhin's eventual obsessive descent and suicide, and most (especially after he gets married) plod along with his chess-playing days behind him, wandering the world in an aimless fog of "normality."

It could also have been the tendency toward extremely long chapters. Occasionally, one paragraph might cover several pages, and include long stretches of dialogue without any line breaks. The eye does need that bit of relief from a solid wall of text, and without it, the reading slows down considerably. This is one of my pet peeves with Franz Kafka's novels as well.

Or it might have been the fact that many characters, most actually, remain nameless, including Luzhin's long-suffering girlfriend then wife (who is alternately referred to as "the daughter," "she," and, later, "Mrs Luzhin," as if she has no identity of her own). I don't know if this is a particularity of Russian writers, or those in Eastern Europe in general (Kafka was notable for this, as well as Serbian author Zoran Zivkovic); anecdotal experiences do not equal to facts, so I hope that someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Regardless, it does distance the reader from the characters, who are distinctive otherwise.

But my complaints about technique aside, what really strikes me is the discordant pronunciation by Nabokov that the book "contains and diffuses the greatest warmth" of his Russian novels, when it can only be seen as the tragic downfall of the title character. Luzhin's obsession and genius at chess is the defining characteristic of his life, but following his nervous breakdown during his championship match with Turati, he is denied this outlet of his genius in the service of preserving his mental health. But obsession, as Mrs Luzhin comes to discover, can't be suppressed, no matter how one may try to ignore it. And the chess defense that Luzhin has been mentally striving to solve comes roaring back at the end, sending him out of a bathroom window to his death.

The parts of the novel that really struck me were in the interpretation of the real world as a chess board. When Nabokov gets into the meat of strategy and terminology, the prose sings on the page, but these instances are just too few and far between. Which is surprising after the lyrical playfulness of King, Queen, Knave. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the text on the page felt as stilted and static as Luzhin's post-breakdown existence, as if Nabokov couldn't give himself the linguistic freedom to explore Luzhin's plight.