Despair

Name: Despair
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.8 (4 reviews)
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
ISBN: 9781441873262

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrator: Christopher Lane

Unabridged: 7 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Published: 03/20/2011

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965 — thirty 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.“A beautiful mystery plot, not to be revealed.” - NewsweekOne of the twentieth 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.“Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” — John Updike

About Vladimir Nabokov

One of the twentieth 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin on December 29, 2023

Prague, 1930s: Hermann Karlovich, a self-aggrandising captain of industry, stumbles across a homeless man in a park. He inanely imagines the vagrant to be his exact doppelgänger and begins to obsess over him. Then he hatches a 'foolproof' plan to murder his lookalike so he can cash in on his own lif......more

Goodreads review by Adam on November 10, 2017

Intensely good writing, with the unique Nabokovian feature of phrases we've never heard before somehow moving propulsively. Unfortunately, after a promising start, the plot turns flimsy, with the "twist" at the end telegraphed far too often to be anything other than a disappointment. This is an iceb......more

Goodreads review by Michael on September 21, 2017

Wild, wicked, stylish, funny, in only the way Nabokov could write. On every page you sense the fun he's having, and boy, is it infectious.......more

Goodreads review by Violet on March 15, 2019

Our fabulously droll narrator is out for a stroll when he sees someone asleep under a tree. He nudges the sleeper's face with his foot and has the shock of his life. He is looking down at his own face. Nabokov's narrator, we soon learn, lives in a kind of hall of mirrors. And who wouldn't go insane......more

Goodreads review by William2 on September 19, 2021

My second reading. The gay sub (and not so sub) text is at once hilarious and moving. Though this is essentially a caper plot. The perfect murder etc. A maniacally overconfident Russian emigre living in Weimar-era Berlin convinces himself he has found his physical double or lookalike and—after much......more