Despair (novel)
Author | Vladimir Nabokov |
---|---|
Original title | Отчаяние |
Translator | Vladimir Nabokov |
Country | Germany |
Language | Russian |
Publisher | Sovremennye Zapiski Publishing House; John Long Ltd. (London )(first English-language edition); Putnam (2nd English version) |
Publication date | 1934 |
Published in English | 1937 (revised by the author in 1965) |
Media type |
Despair (
Plot summary
The narrator and protagonist of the story, Hermann Karlovich, a Russian of German descent and owner of a chocolate factory, meets a homeless man in the city of Prague, who he believes is his doppelgänger. Even though Felix, the supposed doppelgänger, is seemingly unaware of their resemblance, Hermann insists that their likeness is most striking. Hermann is married to Lydia, a sometimes silly and forgetful wife (according to Hermann) who has a cousin named Ardalion. It is heavily hinted that Lydia and Ardalion are, in fact, lovers, although Hermann continually stresses how much Lydia loves him. On one occasion Hermann actually walks in on the pair, naked, but Hermann appears to be completely oblivious of the situation, perhaps deliberately so. After some time, Hermann shares with Felix a plan for both of them to profit off their shared likeness by having Felix briefly pretend to be Hermann. But after Felix is disguised as Hermann, Hermann kills Felix in order to collect the insurance money on Hermann on March 9. Hermann considers the presumably perfect murder plot to be a work of art rather than a scheme to gain money. But as it turns out, there is no resemblance whatsoever between the two men, the murder is not 'perfect', and the murderer is about to be captured by the police in a small hotel in France, where he is hiding. Hermann, the narrator, switches to a diary mode at the very end just before his capture; the last entry is on April 1.
Background
Publication history
Nabokov began to compose Despair while he was living in Berlin beginning in July 1932 and managed to complete the first draft on September 10 of the same year. The year in which Nabokov was writing Despair was a turbulent one for Germany. In June 1932, the
By 1935, Nabokov had become increasingly intrigued with the English language, and he elected to translate his two most recently written novels at the time,
Influences
Nabokov intended Hermann, and the novel in general, to be kind of a
Criticism
Reception
Despair is generally acclaimed as one of Nabokov's better Russian novels, along with Invitation to a Beheading and The Gift (1938), and has a reasonable volume of literary criticism. British author Martin Amis ranked it second on his list of best Nabokov novels, with it trailing only Lolita (1955).[6] However, Nabokov's biographer Brian Boyd seemed to have ambivalent feelings toward Despair, noting that although "Nabokov's sheer intelligence crackles in every line ... the book's style ... seems sadly lacking in its structure ... It never quite convinces, and page after page that would make one tingle with excitement in another context can here only intermittently overcome one's remoteness from a story whose central premise fails to merit the suspension of disbelief".[7]
Analysis
Despair is the second Nabokov novel to feature
Additionally, Despair is also a tale of false doubles, one of Nabokov's favorite themes. In it, doubling seems to be only an obsession with physical resemblances. Almost all of Nabokov's fictions make ample use of doubling, duplication, and mirroring, such as in Pale Fire and Lolita.
Vladislav Khodasevich pointed out that Nabokov is obsessed with a single theme: "the nature of the creative process and the solitary, freak-life role into which a man with such imagination is inevitably cast."[9] Hermann, who sees himself as an artist composing the 'perfect murder', fits this description. In a similar fashion, Julian Connolly calls Despair "a cautionary tale of creative solipsism".[10]
In other media
In 1978, the novel was adapted into the
References
- ^ Boyd 1991, p. 382
- ^ Boyd 1991, pp. 419–421
- ^ Boyd 1991, pp. 429–430
- ^ Boyd 1991, p. 383
- ^ a b Aleksandr Dolinin. The Caning of Modernist Profaners: Parody in Despair Archived 2008-04-18 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 04-12-2008
- ^ "Amis Bookshelf--3". www.martinamisweb.com. Archived from the original on 2008-11-18.
- ^ Boyd 1991, p. 389
- ^ Nabokov 1989, p. xiii
- ^ Simon Karlinsky. Illusion, Reality, and Parody in Nabokov's Plays. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Vol 8, No 2, 1967, p 268 retrieved 04-09-2008
- ^ Connolly, Julian W. "The Major Russian Novels." The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov (ed. Julian Connolly). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 135. Print.
Sources
- Boyd, Brian (1991). Vladimir Nabokov : the Russian years. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691024707.
- Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich (1989). Despair. New York: Vintage International. ISBN 9780679723431.
External links
- "Despair Links"
- Google books excerpts preview at Despair and The Portable Nabokov