Stalking Nabokov by Brian Boyd | eBook

At the age of twenty-one, Brian Boyd wrote an essay on Vladimir Nabokov that the author called "brilliant." In 1991, after gaining exclusive access to the writer's archives, he wrote a two-part, award-winning biography, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, that has become standard reading. This collection features essays written by Boyd after completing Nabokov's biography, incorporating material he gleaned from his research as well as new discoveries and formulations. This volume forms the perfect companion for readers of Nabokov, approaching the author from a variety of angles and perspectives.

Boyd confronts Nabokov's life, career, and legacy; his art, science, and thought; his subtle humor and puzzle-like storytelling; his complex psychological portraits; and his inheritance from, reworking of, or affinities with Shakespeare, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Machado de Assis. Boyd offers new ways of reading Nabokov's best English-language work: Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, and the unparalleled autobiography, Speak, Memory, and he discloses otherwise unknown information about the author's world. Sharing his personal reflections, Boyd recounts the adventures, hardships, and revelations of researching Nabokov's biography and his unusual finds in the archives, including materials still awaiting publication. The first to focus on Nabokov's metaphysics, Boyd in fact downplays their importance, instead emphasizing the author's humor, reinvention of narrative possibility, and psychological renderings of various characters to unlock the greater mysteries. Reading Nabokov as novelist, memoirist, poet, translator, scientist, and individual, Boyd further immortalizes his far-reaching, versatile talents.

Leland de la Durantaye

It is always the case that different things interest different readers, but this will be particularly so here. The specialist reader is likely to be drawn to sections on archival holdings and critical debates, whereas a more general reading public will be more apt to find fascination in the sections on Nabokov's butterflies, his metaphysics and the (surprising) point where the two converge. But for all those interested in tellers and tales, there is much here that will inform, enliven and enlighten the work of one of the greatest novelists of his century.
—The New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly

In this collection of essays, lectures, and book reviews spanning 20 years since the publication of Boyd's two-volume biography of Nabokov, Boyd demonstrates that he continues to be our leading interpreter of this brilliant but enigmatic writer. With remarkable critical insight, Boyd reflects on a wide variety of subjects ranging from the art and craft of the biographer and Nabokov's famous love of butterflies to the novelist's humor, metaphysics, and the influence on him of other writers—from Shakespeare to Tolstoy. For example, Nabokov's "humor springs from "the comedy of life's mismatching our expectations.... Nabokov loves and laughs at life even amid loss." In a centennial toast, Boyd captures lovingly Nabokov's enduring appeal and the essence of his genius: "He believes that the fullness and the complexity of life suggest worlds within worlds within worlds, and he builds his own imagined universes to match... he allows us to find our own way to them, just as he thinks whatever lies behind life invites us to an endless adventure of discovery in and beyond life." Boyd's graceful style and passionate advocacy achieves the goal of the best literary criticism: it compels us to pick up Nabokov and read, or read again, the work of a master. (Sept.)

San Francisco Chronicle - Eric Naiman

Absolutely fascinating.... Uniquely compelling.... This is Boyd at his best.

Slavic Review - Stephen H. Blackwell

Boyd is always a pleasure to read...and this collection does not disappoint.

The Listener - David Eggleton

Substantial.... Impressive.... Enlightening.... Best of all, his enthusiasm for Nabokov's verbal pyrotechnics, for his comically deluded heroes pursuing elusive objects of desire, for the ability to depict life itself, joyously 'swarming with inexhaustible diversity and delight,' sends you back to read the books... of one of literature's great masters.

The Russian Review - Jason Merrill

Boyd's sophisticated use of texts and contexts, close readings informed by archival materials and decades of experience, and wonderful writing style mean that all Nabokov scholars and fans will enjoy.

Slavonic and East European Review - U.H. Dematagoda

Boyd is, without a doubt, an incredibly exacting and rigorous scholar — his tireless research and collection of a vast array of materials is something which coming generations of academics will continue to be grateful for.

Choice

Required reading for serious students of Nabokov.

Boston Globe

...plenty rewarding.

— Larry Hardesty

Booklist

Essential for everyone interested in the Russian master.

Times Literary Supplement

Stalking Nabokov, in the end, is a tribute not just to an extraordinary literary animal, but also to the size, force, and stamina of an extraordinatory brain.

— Martin Amis

New Yorker

There is plenty of sensible and revealing stuff here.

San Francisco Chronicle

[Boyd's] range, like Nabokovs's, is impressive, but his strength is in close reading.

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Absolutely excellent.... there is much here that will inform, enliven, and enlighten the work of one of the greatest novelists of his century.

New York Times Book Review

There is much here that will inform, enliven, and enlighten the work of one of the greatest novelists of his century.

Australian Book Review

Brian Boyd is not only Nabokov's biographer but also his pre-eminent critic. This is a valuable and delightful collection of essays on one of the twentieth century's most significant novelists.

Michael Wood

This book is a real treasure. It represents a considerable range of work by the author of one of the great biographies of the late twentieth century, who is also a lucid and consistently engaged and engaging critic. A remarkable read—all readers and scholars of Vladimir Nabokov will need this book.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

Brian Boyd is, without question, the foremost single authority on Vladimir Nabokov's life and art and has been generally considered such ever since the publication of his magisterial two-volume critical biography, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Not only is anything that Boyd writes about Nabokov significant, but his study of Nabokov is remarkably dynamic -- there's just no other word for it. Stalking Nabokov tells a fascinating story of continual intellectual rediscovery and of Boyd's own development as reader, student, literary sleuth, biographer, critic, colleague, collaborator, mentor, and, best of all, rereader.

Stephen Jan Parker

At the end of the twentieth century, Vladimir Nabokov was judged as one of the ten greatest writers in the world of that century. And I can confirm that the two best works ever written on Nabokov—anywhere in the world—are Brian Boyd's two-volume account of Nabokov's life and work. In these volumes, the specifics of Nabokov's life are thorough and precisely correct, and the description, evaluation, and interpretation of all of Nabokov's writings remain to this day the finest ever written. All Nabokov scholars must use Boyd's work and interpretations as a basis in order to go forward from any other perspective. So without question, he is the greatest Nabokov scholar in the world

Times Literary Supplement - Martin Amis

Ambitious.... Fervent.... Epiphanic.

Boston Globe - Larry Hardesty

Advances a consistent and intriguing reading of [Nabokov's] work.... a powerful corrective to a prevailing view of Nabokov.

Australian Book Review - Paul Morgan

Boyd's deft analysis of the novels is superb.... genuinely exhilarating.... Brian Boyd is not only Nabokov's biographer but also his pre-eminent critic. This is a valuable and delightful collection of essays on one of the twentieth century's most significant novelists.

Stalking Nabokov

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