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Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was one of the great writers of the twentieth century, as well as a translator and lepidopterist. His works include, from the Russian novels, The Luzhin Defense and The Gift; from the English novels, Lolita, Pnin, Pale Fire and Ada; the autobiographical Speak, Memory; translations of Alice in Wonderland into Russian and Eugene Onegin into English; and lectures on literature. All of the fiction and Speak, Memory are published in Penguin.
One of the most intriguing novels we've seen for some time, unfortunately hampered by a slow, rather bewildering start. Here is superb satire, biting, never blatant, in parts poetic - the whole more effective than any bombast and bitterness could arouse... The hero, Krug, is a professor of international renown. He loses his wife just as a dictator, whom he'd known at school as an unpopular boy, takes over. But his preoccupation with his grief and worry over his boy eclipses all realization of what this dictatorship might mean. As his friends are arrested- in some of the most quietly savage scenes imaginable - he begins to worry about his son's fate. Then the new regime offers him security if he will proclaim his support. He refuses- and in a horror scene, the boy is taken away and killed, and the story ends with Krug mad. In spite of a spate of such stories, this has a violence and immediacy that is impressive. And yet, unless it gets the backing of individual enthusiasm, it probably wont sell. (Kirkus Reviews)
