Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (1992), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 336 pages
Description
The Giftis the phantasmal autobiography of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdynstev, a writer living in the closed world of Russian intellectuals in Berlin shortly after the First World War. This gorgeous tapestry of literature and butterflies tells the story of Fyodor's pursuits as a writer. Its heroine is not Fyodor's elusive and beloved Zina, however, but Russian prose and poetry themselves.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Karlus
Is it possible to be bored with a novel, and yet be fascinated by it? Or perhaps, contrariwise, to have a fascination that verges on boredom?
This novel may have it! At least for me.
The Gift has passages of exquiste beauty decribing butterfly hunting in far-off central Asia, for example, including
But, at root, it is the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an unknown, unrecognized, undistinguished, down-and-out, would-be author with an obsessive desire to make his literary mark in the world. We read the details of Fyodor's day-to-day struggles with his mundane life, and with his inner literary demon, in an ordinary world that is vividly and meticulously described as only Nabokov can describe it. We read of Fyodor obsessed with developing a writing technique, compiling lists of adjectives, analyzing the metrics of rhyming in Russian poetry, and finally trying to figure out just how to research and organize the details for the biography he has chosen to write of a historically-famous author and critic.
And that is where Nabokov, and Fyodor, begin to lose me.
The novel was written mainly in 1935-37 in Berlin, where an emigre audience would still have fresh memories of pre-revolutionary social and literary hardships under the Tsars in late nineteenth century Russia. I am sure the novel would have greater resonance and meaning with its emigree audience then, than it does with my exceedingly slender knowldge of that era now.
Fyodor chooses to write the life story of Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevski, the real-life writer and critic, whose novel "What is to be Done?" was destined to be noticed and used by Lenin for his own revolutionary purpose. During the writing, an immense number of nineteenth-century Russian authors, from famous to obscure, receive Fyodor's critical appraisal as he does his research. Eventually Fyodor's demythologized and highly critical The Life of Chenryshevski is published and included in its entirety as a very long section in The Gift.
Finally, Fyodor's inspiration in the closing pages of The Gift provides the key to seeing the hitherto disparate elements of the novel as an organic whole. One is then armed to reread the novel and gain its full enjoyment. But for me, that reread will have to be done with an encyclopedic social and literary history of Russia in my other hand. Only then will I be able to fully recognize the nuances and jibes that I can now only dimly see written into this mammoth novel on Nabokov's favorite topic. In Nabokov's own words, from the Introduction, the hero of the novel is Russian Literature.
This novel may have it! At least for me.
The Gift has passages of exquiste beauty decribing butterfly hunting in far-off central Asia, for example, including
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a dream of a butterfly-covered landscape of unsurpassed brilliance and fantasy. It has wonderful scenes -- regrettably far, far too few -- where Fyodor gets to know and love Zina, in whose alert intelligence we can easily recognize the appealing earmarks of Vera, Nabokov's own true real-life and enduring love.But, at root, it is the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an unknown, unrecognized, undistinguished, down-and-out, would-be author with an obsessive desire to make his literary mark in the world. We read the details of Fyodor's day-to-day struggles with his mundane life, and with his inner literary demon, in an ordinary world that is vividly and meticulously described as only Nabokov can describe it. We read of Fyodor obsessed with developing a writing technique, compiling lists of adjectives, analyzing the metrics of rhyming in Russian poetry, and finally trying to figure out just how to research and organize the details for the biography he has chosen to write of a historically-famous author and critic.
And that is where Nabokov, and Fyodor, begin to lose me.
The novel was written mainly in 1935-37 in Berlin, where an emigre audience would still have fresh memories of pre-revolutionary social and literary hardships under the Tsars in late nineteenth century Russia. I am sure the novel would have greater resonance and meaning with its emigree audience then, than it does with my exceedingly slender knowldge of that era now.
Fyodor chooses to write the life story of Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevski, the real-life writer and critic, whose novel "What is to be Done?" was destined to be noticed and used by Lenin for his own revolutionary purpose. During the writing, an immense number of nineteenth-century Russian authors, from famous to obscure, receive Fyodor's critical appraisal as he does his research. Eventually Fyodor's demythologized and highly critical The Life of Chenryshevski is published and included in its entirety as a very long section in The Gift.
Finally, Fyodor's inspiration in the closing pages of The Gift provides the key to seeing the hitherto disparate elements of the novel as an organic whole. One is then armed to reread the novel and gain its full enjoyment. But for me, that reread will have to be done with an encyclopedic social and literary history of Russia in my other hand. Only then will I be able to fully recognize the nuances and jibes that I can now only dimly see written into this mammoth novel on Nabokov's favorite topic. In Nabokov's own words, from the Introduction, the hero of the novel is Russian Literature.
Show Less
LibraryThing member chellerystick
The Gift, Nabokov's last novel written in Russian (in the 1930's), translated into English in 1963, is another lovely example of Nabokov's eye for detail, as well as his deft use of sound. Although Nabokov likes to write about people who are perhaps not normal, he does so with such clarity that one
The main character tutors someone in the English language, while the author manipulates the metaphor of communication as message-passing:
"The bus rolled on--and presently he arrived at his destination--the place of a lone and lonesome young woman, very attractive in spite of her freckles, always wearing a black dress opened at the neck and with lips like sealing-wax on a letter in which there was nothing. She continually looked at Fyodor with pensive curiosity, not only taking no interest int he remarkable novel by Stevenson which he had been reading with her for the past three months (and before that they had read Kipling at the same rate), but also not understanding a single sentence, and noting down words as you would note down the address of someone you knew you would never visit."
The book touches also on nature, romance, poetics, and, in chapter 4, a kind of modernist half-biography that is meant to be more true than the truth. The book does not have a fast-paced plot, but rather lovingly builds up the details of surprisingly quiet lives in unquiet times. Thus, instead of being a page-turner, it is a book to take your time over.
Highly recommended.
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sympathizes even with the obsessed, the bigoted, and the self-centered, even while disliking them. The main character tutors someone in the English language, while the author manipulates the metaphor of communication as message-passing:
"The bus rolled on--and presently he arrived at his destination--the place of a lone and lonesome young woman, very attractive in spite of her freckles, always wearing a black dress opened at the neck and with lips like sealing-wax on a letter in which there was nothing. She continually looked at Fyodor with pensive curiosity, not only taking no interest int he remarkable novel by Stevenson which he had been reading with her for the past three months (and before that they had read Kipling at the same rate), but also not understanding a single sentence, and noting down words as you would note down the address of someone you knew you would never visit."
The book touches also on nature, romance, poetics, and, in chapter 4, a kind of modernist half-biography that is meant to be more true than the truth. The book does not have a fast-paced plot, but rather lovingly builds up the details of surprisingly quiet lives in unquiet times. Thus, instead of being a page-turner, it is a book to take your time over.
Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Marse
Looking at the cover of the Popular Library (1963) paperback edition of "The Gift" by Vladimir Nabokov, it is difficult to imagine how that cover came to be, in fact it is difficult to imagine that this book could be considered a 'popular'--in the sense of appreciated by the general
Is this book worth reading? Absolutely! Is it accessible? I can only tell you my experience. More than 30 years ago I was beginning graduate school in Slavic literature and languages. Before flying to Poland for a summer school program, I spent a few days at a high school friend's garret in New York City. She was renting a room on the top floor of a 6 floor walkup which in actuality was an attic with a working bathtub in the middle of the room (she shared a toilet down the hall with the rest of the tenants on that floor). On one side of the attic were piles and piles of paperback books which the owner of the attic (a writer of some sort) stored there. These books looked like they hadn't been touched in decades, and among them I found this very edition of "the Gift". Thinking I would read it during my stay in Poland, and return it on my way homeward, I filched it from the attic. Throughout that summer I would read snatches of it whenever I had a few free moments. I don't remember whether I finished the novel or not, I just remember not being able to recall anything that happened or anything about the main character--even as I was reading it.
A few weeks ago I glimpsed this same edition in the Library resale book store and it called to me. Oh what a difference 30 years make! What I realize now is that, first of all, this is a novel that demands attention and leisure--no quick sips every now and again, no! it needs to be savored with no interruptions for a minimum of a couple hours at a time. Secondly, I was a complete ignoramus back then--I thought I knew Russian literature and culture, but in actuality I had just barely brushed the surface, and this novel is front and foremost a love poem to and about Russian literary culture as well as a critique of some of Russia's most beloved cultural figures.
The main character is a Russian emigre poet/writer living in Berlin during the 20s. He lives among the squalor and pettiness of the Russian literary refugees. He writes about the lost world of his childhood, he writes about his father--an explorer and searcher of butterflies who never returned from his last expedition, and in a chapter that was excised until the 1950s edition, he writes a biography/evisceration of the literary and social critic/martyr Nikolai Chernyshevsky. In a strange twist of life imitating art, the Russian emigre publishing world was outraged by this biography, as were the emigres in the novel itself. Why was this chapter left out of the original Russian version? Was it salacious? Was it obscene? It was because Nabokov depicted an icon of Russian 19th century social/progressive thought as an untalented, awkward, and frankly, ridiculous figure.
I didn't even mention the language, his analysis of various authors' styles, use of poetic meter, even particular words. Oh there is a love story too. The writer falls for a girl in the boarding house where he lives, and this story is the novel that will come into being as you read the book.
If ever a book needed an annotated edition, then this is the one...and it turns out someone has done just that. I found "Keys to the Gift" through interlibrary loan. I can't wait to discover what I've missed.
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population--book. The front cover is reminiscent of a "From Here to Eternity" romance, and the quotes on the book are nothing if not cryptic: "a bizarre and special romp", "a powerful kick", "an occasion of delight". What is this book about? If I had to sum it up, I would say it is about creativity, nostalgia, writing.Is this book worth reading? Absolutely! Is it accessible? I can only tell you my experience. More than 30 years ago I was beginning graduate school in Slavic literature and languages. Before flying to Poland for a summer school program, I spent a few days at a high school friend's garret in New York City. She was renting a room on the top floor of a 6 floor walkup which in actuality was an attic with a working bathtub in the middle of the room (she shared a toilet down the hall with the rest of the tenants on that floor). On one side of the attic were piles and piles of paperback books which the owner of the attic (a writer of some sort) stored there. These books looked like they hadn't been touched in decades, and among them I found this very edition of "the Gift". Thinking I would read it during my stay in Poland, and return it on my way homeward, I filched it from the attic. Throughout that summer I would read snatches of it whenever I had a few free moments. I don't remember whether I finished the novel or not, I just remember not being able to recall anything that happened or anything about the main character--even as I was reading it.
A few weeks ago I glimpsed this same edition in the Library resale book store and it called to me. Oh what a difference 30 years make! What I realize now is that, first of all, this is a novel that demands attention and leisure--no quick sips every now and again, no! it needs to be savored with no interruptions for a minimum of a couple hours at a time. Secondly, I was a complete ignoramus back then--I thought I knew Russian literature and culture, but in actuality I had just barely brushed the surface, and this novel is front and foremost a love poem to and about Russian literary culture as well as a critique of some of Russia's most beloved cultural figures.
The main character is a Russian emigre poet/writer living in Berlin during the 20s. He lives among the squalor and pettiness of the Russian literary refugees. He writes about the lost world of his childhood, he writes about his father--an explorer and searcher of butterflies who never returned from his last expedition, and in a chapter that was excised until the 1950s edition, he writes a biography/evisceration of the literary and social critic/martyr Nikolai Chernyshevsky. In a strange twist of life imitating art, the Russian emigre publishing world was outraged by this biography, as were the emigres in the novel itself. Why was this chapter left out of the original Russian version? Was it salacious? Was it obscene? It was because Nabokov depicted an icon of Russian 19th century social/progressive thought as an untalented, awkward, and frankly, ridiculous figure.
I didn't even mention the language, his analysis of various authors' styles, use of poetic meter, even particular words. Oh there is a love story too. The writer falls for a girl in the boarding house where he lives, and this story is the novel that will come into being as you read the book.
If ever a book needed an annotated edition, then this is the one...and it turns out someone has done just that. I found "Keys to the Gift" through interlibrary loan. I can't wait to discover what I've missed.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Laura1124
This was brilliant, funny, and magical. I was lost in chapter 4 and had to look up Chernyshevski but still most went over my head because I'm not familiar enough with Russian history and literature. The second chapter - Fyodore's imaginings of his fathers travels through Asia were fantastic and the
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last chapter's twist of fate was a perfect ending. I did not remove the half star because of my failings - it just doesn't compare with Lolita or Pale Fire. Show Less
LibraryThing member ivanfranko
Difficult to grapple with if you start reading Nabokov with this novel as I have done. Reading "THE GIFT" caused me to realise I am ignorant about Russian literature.
After looking at some criticisms of the novel I found I could adopt a viewpoint from which some better understanding of it might be
After looking at some criticisms of the novel I found I could adopt a viewpoint from which some better understanding of it might be
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arrived at. Show Less
Awards
Notable Books List (1963)
Language
Original language
Russian
Original publication date
1952
Physical description
336 p.; 7.72 inches
ISBN
0140184171 / 9780140184174