Despair (Penguin Modern Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov takes us into a deranged world, one full of an impudent, startling humour, dominated by the egotistical and scornful figure of a murderer who thinks himself an artist.
About the Author
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.
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First Sentence
If I were not perfectly sure of my power to write and of my marvellous ability to express ideas with the utmost grace and vividness . . . So, more or less, I had thought of beginning my tale. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
If I were not perfectly sure of my power to write and of my marvellous ability to express ideas with the utmost grace and vividness . . . So, more or less, I had thought of beginning my tale. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Nabokov plays with our minds. He places characters before the reader, then delves darkly into their minds. Hermann is a deceitful, dismissive, arrogant, deluded soul. Unhappy with his own unsatisfyingly simple life, he escapes within his own delusions, travelling away from his home. Questions arise about identity, how man sees himself related to how the rest of the world sees him and how, sometimes, the two bear no relation. Despair is a fascinating read. Nabokov's prose is a lyrical and rich as ever. A master of his genre, if not the creator of it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Despair, a short novel by Vladimir Nabokov, exposes one man's descent into evil. The story begins with the curiously named Hermann Hermann (a wearer of tangerine gloves) stumbling across a vagrant who he instantly sees as being his doppelganger. The chance encounter with the tramp haunts and excites Hermann, and slowly he hatches a dastardly plot. Hermann justifies everything, all is crystal clear to him, his planning is pinpoint, he believes his intelligence to be mighty, and yet the one thing he cannot see is that his perceptions are distorted . . or are they? Nabokov is as subtle as ever when it comes to understanding the full picture: is Hermann a deluded fool losing his grip on reality or did one simple mistake wreck his flawless plan? Despair is a realistic, dark and simmering first-person narrative of a man descending.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Perhaps one of the marks of genius is that a writer produces works that are totally different from eachother. When I like a book by the Nab, I absolutely love it as masterpiece of quirkiness and bizarre obsessions, if always devoid of much normal human emotion. This book is truly different from anything else I know if his: the character is cold and calculating, quite uninteresting and lacking in charm and learning. Bored with his life and hating everyone in it, he is planing the "perfect crime" to liberate himself. While there are games within games - just how perfect is the crime? - this horrible guy simply appeared horrible and boring to me, and I never really enjoyed his stream of thoughts and plans. It is utter nihilism and, unlike socially concerned writers, there is no point to any of it. Recommended only for the most devoted of Nabokov fans.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Awful
I couldn't even bring myself to finish this, and I can only say that about two other books in my life. A truly awful book. Read more
Published on 7 April 2006 by S. Hunter
Stunning
Just discovering Nabokov . This is the best so far. Anyone who is a fan of the Nic Roeg film "Performance" will also enjoy this. You will lap it up.
Published on 21 Sep 2005 by "djash65"
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