“A mystery!” the book announces
Curious; is it really true?
You’ll suss it in no time, VN pronounces.
But of all people, dear Volodya, I can hardly trust you.
A tutor with his charges,
Nervous and awkward as we’d expect,
Until the mystery man (is he?) barges
In, our hero to eject.
A suicide, failed or not?
Who can tell but the man himself?
He sets down to rot
Not in the ground, but in the torture of self.
But VN was right, I passed one test;
The “mystery” was easy—now what of all the rest?
Yay, excited for your week of The Eye (my post on it should hopefully go up sometime soon).
After the pyrotechnics of The Luzhin Defense, I found this an odd change of pace, but kind of refreshing.
Emily, what do you mean? What is The Eye but pyrotechnics, a short but concentrated trip to Showoffville?
A change of pace, sure, because of the switch to first person.
I failed to mention the poem! It is worthy of the subject. I especially like the use of the introduction. I feel sorry for the original readers, the Russian ones, because they did not have those introductions. Talk about your unreliable narrators.
I mean, I feel more sorry about the whole fleeing-from-the-Soviets-then-the-Nazis history. But additionally sorry about the introductions.
Haha, and I was just about to thank everyone for not mentioning the poem!
AR, you make a good point about the pyrotechnics. But it’s definitely a change after The Luzhin Defense—first person but also much smaller.
It’s hard to imagine reading a Nabokov novel going into it like it was Ariane, Jeune Fille Russe. I imagine fainting fits. I really don’t know how he was received at the time though.