Nabokov's Novels in English

Lucy Maddoxs sensitive treatment of Nabokovs eight finished novels written in EnglishPale Fire, Ada, Lolita, Bend Sinister, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Transparent Things, Look at the Harlequins! and Pninapproaches the novelists work as significant fiction with its own integrity. Maddox provides the kind of discursive introduction that makes Nabokovs complex work more accessible, focusing on the relationship between the eccentric, artificial structures of the novels and their deeply traditional, humanistic themes. While the forms of the novels are idiosyncratic and often bizarre, says Maddox, the texts themselves are neither unfamiliar nor eccentric. Repeatedly the text is the frustration of desire or loss, which is for Nabokov the most agonizing and inescapable of human experiences. Maddox also traces through all eight novels the development of Nabokovs style, which she treats as a matter of both technique and vision.