Look at the Harlequins! (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Nabokov, Vladimir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141198036 ISBN 13: 9780141198033

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1991

Synopsis

'He did us all an honour by electing to use, and transform, our language' Anthony Burgess

'Look at the harlequins ... Play! Invent the world! Invent reality'.

This is the childhood advice given by an aunt to Russian born writer Vadim Vadimovich, who emigrates to England, then Paris, then Germany and then the US, and, now dying, reconstructs his past. He remembers Iris his first wife, Annette his long-necked typist and Bel his daughter, as well as his own bizarre 'numerical nimbus syndrome'.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Focusing on the central figures of his life--his four wives, his books, and his muse, Dementia--the book leads us to suspect that the fictions Vadim has created as an author have crossed the line between his life's work and his life itself, as the worlds of reality and literary invention grow increasingly indistinguishable.

About the Author

One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0141198036
• ISBN 13: 9780141198033
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224