Transparent Things (Vintage International) [Paperback]

While its comparatively inaccessible structure is off-putting, what I found most bothersome about Transparent Things was my inability to relate Nabokov's fragmented narration to the story being told. The text feels like a camera with a macro lens following Person through his life, picking up this object here, this scene there, all in magnified detail, but to an end that escapes me.

One of Nabokov's greatest strengths is the multilayered nature of his novels. He is one of the exceptionally rare authors who allows a reader to take away exactly what they bring in. But this is not a one-sided trait, by which he crafts a text that runs infinitely deep and from which only the exceptionally scholarly are able to extract every last allusion and nuance from the text. It also means that over this depth there is a simple story that any reader can follow. In Transparent Things, this gift of Nabokov's seems employed in reverse, in that what is in essence a very simple story lies not on the surface, but is occluded by a layer of decidedly opaque murk.

Perhaps this is the point of the novel--that things are not transparent, that every object does not present its story as simply as a novel does, but rather gives us hard, solid surfaces. However, an author such as Nabokov wastes his talent in making such a point. There are enough inscrutable surfaces in the world, but not enough books like Pale Fire, which offer, like cut diamond, varying degrees of transparency, depending on a viewer's angle.

Save this one for later.

Although barely 100 pages, TT is one of the world's very most complex works of literature. To speak of the plot is deceiving since the perspective from and the manner in which the cynosure (viz., Hugh Person)'s tale is told -- and how he eventually relates to the teller(s)/telling -- is what the text is "about"; and comprehending this is no easy feat. While I personally don't consider John Updike a great mind, I don't think he can be derided for admitting that he was completely baffled by TT. (Incidentally, he still professed to admire and enjoy it.) This was, in fact, the general reaction to this book, a reaction which so frustrated Nabokov that he was prompted to break with his general reluctance to explicate his own work (an explication which he was obviously quite annoyed (and baffled to have) to give, as the confusion on the his readers' collective part was not due to any insufficiency in the book). (I hesitate to divulge where this interview can be found, but if you read the book and are similarly perplexed, any decent compendium on Nabokovian criticism will contain it, as there is VERY little that has been written on TT.) What can hardly be debated is the singular narrative approach Nabokov employs -- nay, creates! This novelty alone puts the reader in a place (s)he has never been and so a form or degree of literary vertigo is to be expected.

As with all Nabokov, no matter the complexity and subtextual goings-on, the plot and character development of TT is not slighted -- and it is perhaps this Nabokovian trait which often allows even those who realize that they are perhaps missing the bulk of Nabokov's artisanship to still appreciate his art. Personally, I have neither enjoyed nor admired a work of art any more profoundly than I do this one.