Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita - Softcover

Roper, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 163286388X ISBN 13: 9781632863881

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2016

Synopsis

Born to an eminent Russian family, Vladimir Nabokov came to America fleeing the Nazis and remembered his time here as the richest of his life. Indeed, his best work flowed from his response to this storied land. With charm and insight, Robert Roper fills out this period in the writer's life: his friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, his role at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. But Nabokov in America finds its narrative heart in his and his family's serial sojourns into the West. Roper has mined fresh sources to bring detail to these journeys, and traces their significant influence in Nabokov's work: on two-lane highways and in late-'40s motels and cafés, we feel Lolita draw near, and understand Nabokov's seductive familiarity with the American mundane. Nabokov in America is also a love letter to U.S. literature, in Nabokov's broad embrace of it from Melville to the Beats. Reading Roper, we feel anew the rich learning and the Romantic mind behind some of Nabokov's most beloved books.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Roper is the author of books including Fatal Mountaineer, winner of the 2002 Boardman Tasker Prize, and, most recently, Now the Drum of War, an Editor's Choice pick in the New York Times Book Review. He has also published several novels. His journalism appears in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Outside, and other publications. He lives in California.

Review

"An unmitigated delight. There’s something immensely appealing about the Nabokovs as a family unit, their lives centered on the production of the great man’s work--which Dmitri translated and Véra abetted in a thousand ways--but also buoyed by mutual admiration. Like Stacy Schiff, Mr. Roper writes about them with warmth and humor, in a relaxed yet snappy style . . . A stimulating book, and not just because of Mr. Roper’s amiable manner and lively prose." ―Wall Street Journal

"Roper, rather stunningly, puts Nabokov, the Russian emigre, fully in America . . . One of the best of all biographical studies of the author." ―Editor's Choice, Buffalo News

"Fascinating. . . A persuasive case for the essential role America played [in] the gyroscopic spin of Nabokov’s later career." ―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Nabokov in America is rewarding on all counts, as biography, as photo album (there are many pictures of people, Western landscapes and motels) and as appreciative criticism. Not least, Roper even avoids the arch style so often adopted by critics faintly trying to emulate their inimitable subject." ―Washington Post

"A learned, intense, and yet approachable book . . . Roper provides a powerful argument for the role America played in shaping one of the 20th century’s literary giants." ―Boston Globe

"In this enjoyable new biography of his American years, [Roper] follows the author of Lolita and Pale Fire on a 20-year journey across America . . . A fresh look at Nabokov's writing and literary associations, including his contentious friendship with Edmund Wilson. It's a great read." ―San Jose Mercury News

"Compelling and oddly comic, this tale of the Nabokovs and their life in America is fascinating reading . . . Roper has done a crisp and inspired job exploring this momentous literary figure and his place as a strange piece of 20th-century Americana." ―starred review, Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 163286388X
• ISBN 13: 9781632863881
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368