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Despair

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About this listen

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 - 30 years after its original publication - Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder.

One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Public Domain (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc. Classics Crime Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Thriller & Suspense Fiction Russia

Critic reviews

“Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” (John Updike)
“A beautiful mystery plot, not to be revealed.” ( Newsweek)
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Don’t be put off by the title. It is all enormous fun. Christopher Lane’s reading is one of those which go beyond the audiobook’s general convenience of having the story read to you and make of it a theatrical event.
Nabokov’s performance in creating this monstrous unreliable narrator is tongue in cheek throughout. Lane’s reading amplifies the humour and absurdity with poise and assurance.
Reading with a post Lolita perspective, it is not hard to see in Despair an early dry run which would lead in due course to the appalling Humbert Humbert.

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