MaryA gripping tale of youth, first love, and nostalgia. • Written in 1925, Mary is Nabokov’s first novel. Like his other early masterpieces, it bears witness to Nabokov’s sensual mastery of language. “In MARY we see him evoking the first of what became an increasingly brilliant series of worlds.” – Newsweek In a Berlin rooming house filled with an assortment of seriocomic Russian émigrés, Lev Ganin, a vigorous young officer poised between his past and his future, relives his first love affair. His memories of Mary are suffused with the freshness of youth and the idyllic ambience of pre-revolutionary Russia. In stark contrast is the decidedly unappealing boarder living in the room next to Ganin's, who, he discovers, is Mary's husband, temporarily separated from her by the Revolution but expecting her imminent arrival from Russia. |
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Aleksey Ivanovich Alfyorov Anton Sergeyevich began Berlin blue breath chest dacha dachshund dancers dark dear desk door doppelgänger dream dress droshky E. M. Forster eyes face feel Frau Dorn Ganin felt Ganin looked gave girl glance glass gleam Gornotsvetov gray hair hand head Klara knew Kolin Kunitsyn laugh leaned leave letter Lev Glebovich light listened lodgers lunch Lydia Nikolaevna Lyova Lyovushka Lyudmila Mary Maxine Hong Kingston morning moved never night nodded once one's pale park passport past Petersburg pince-nez Podtyagin pulled remembered round Russian seemed shadow sighed sitting sleep slowly smell smile stared stood stopped street suddenly suitcases talk there's things thought tomorrow took train Transparent Things turned typhus V. S. Naipaul Vladimir Nabokov voice Voskresensk W. H. Auden waiting walked wall whispered window wonder yellow