Nabokov's Dozen: A Collection of Thirteen StoriesEach of these thirteen stories is a startling evocation of a single character or happening plucked from the special world of Nabokov's imagination: Czarist Russia, Central Europe between the two World Wars, the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. However, with the exception of Mademoiselle O and First Love, these stories bear no more than an atmospheric relation to the details of Nabokov's own life. He writes: "I am no more guilty of imitating real life than real life is responsible for plagiarizing me." Nabokov, like Gogol, is one of those rare modern writers who have been able to create and populate an entire world out of their own genius and to sustain that world throughout a variety of works. These stories reveal that genius at its most intense.--Adapted from book jacket. |
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Atlantic Monthly Company Berkeley Berkeley Berkeley Biarritz blue Boke brown butterflies café CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Copyright corner dark door dream émigré eyes face Fedchenko fellow Ferdinand Fialta fingers friends German girl glass Golubkov gone gray hair Hall hand happened head husband imagine kind knew lady Lance later leave light lips looked Mademoiselle Mademoiselle's matter memory mind NABOKOV'S DOZEN ness never Nevski Avenue Nice night Nina once one's Paris perhaps Perov picture Pilgram remember Russian seemed shadow Sheremetevski Shoe shoulder side sigh Slavska smile snow somehow SPRING IN FIALTA stood stopped stories suddenly talk things told train trees Tsaritsyn turned UNIVERSITY OF CALIF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA vague Vasili Ivanovich Vladimir Nabokov voice waiting walked White Army wife window woman wonderful young