Nabokov in Motion

Leving has ‘broken the mould’ of Nabokov scholarship. He gives us a dynamic Nabokov who embraced modernity rather than hid from it. The visual richness of this book is stunning; it is both the highest form of scholarship and a kind of pedagogic aid to the experience of travel in Russian modernity. * Eric Naiman, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and author of Nabokov, Perversely * What emerges through an accumulation of a very great number of facts and examples in Nabokov in Motion is a feeling that one has almost visited the world of the early 1900s and felt firsthand the thrill of contemplating the final glory of rail travel and the arrival of automobiles and airplanes as the transportation of the future. Yuri Leving does an excellent job of subjecting bygone days to philological science while completely avoiding the all-too-common structuralist flaw of stripping the old world of all of its charm. Here, charm is ever-present. * Stephen H. Blackwell, former president of the International Nabokov Society and the co-editor of Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art * This book is absolutely brilliant. The entire Russian literature of the early 20th century (including the nearly forgotten authors) is analyzed in the context of symbols of urbanization and new industrial aesthetics. Masterly layering associations, intersections of images, and plots, Leving convincingly demonstrates Russian literature as a single metatext. * Alexandra Selivanova, Director of the Avant-Guard Center Museum, Moscow, Russia *