Of the many Nabokov novels I have read so far, The Gift might not rank as one of my favourites, but it's probably the most ambitious. For a start, it reads like two books in one, as the narrative is about, and in part, by Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev, the young Russian émigré aristocrat living in Berlin who is at the centre of Nabokov's novel. In its ambiguities, its poetry, its typical Nabokov wordplay, and its originality, The Gift can be seen as a metaphor for Russian literature, that greatest of mother Russia’s gifts to the world, and a kind of literary road map to the rest of Nabokov’s work.

Moving from fiction to more or less fact, The story begins by looking at Fyodor’s poems, before Pushkin gets noted in Fyodor’s literary progress which contains his attempt to describe his father’s zoological explorations. We then shift to a chapter on Gogol, and then Fyodor’s biography of 19th-century Russian philosopher Nikolay Chernyshevsky titled a spiral within a sonnet, which is an entirely different narrative structure from the enveloping novel. All this going on inside his work is played out alongside his life outside of writing, and combines all the preceding themes and represents the book Fyodor dreams of writing someday: The Gift. Which to both Nabokov and Fyodor, is an indictment of everything wayward and ignoble about the old Russia that the new Soviet Russia inherited and enlarged.

The Gift is a homage and a parody not only to old Russian masters such as Gogol, Pushkin and Tolstoy, but also of lesser-known provincial writers. Nabokov in the past has carried with him a malice towards certain other Russian writers, but there is none of that here, and one of Nabokov’s greatest accomplishments as a writer is the way he respectfully parodies the great traditions that inspire him. Like all writers, Fyodor is fascinated despite himself by such grotesque details; but like all good writers, including his creator, he has compassion to match his perspicacity. Indeed, in the course of the novel Fyodor’s feelings for others, notably his fiancée, Zina, deepen and mature. There is a striking tenderness in his courtship of Zina that comes across as more affectionate and innocent than the sardonic, jittery and silly love affairs elsewhere in Nabokov’s work. Maybe because it was strongly based on Nabokov’s own courtship of his wife Véra, as so much else in the novel is firmly based on those émigré years, The Gift should be regarded as Nabokov’s most autobiographical novel.

Russian émigré life comes back to life with a greater, deeper, more poignant accuracy here than in any other of Nabokov’s novels, and Fyodor himself grows up before our very eyes, changing from self-indulgent idler, to a man of many letters, with a novelistic, or Nabokovian, eye for masterly writing. There was so much to like about this, however, as Nab set the bar pretty high regarding the rest of his work, this wouldn't even get into my top five, but it does deserve a solid 4/5.

4.5 stars. A very well written, character based novel about the Russian immigrant community in Berlin after World War One. There are two story threads. One is the maturation of Fyodor, as a gifted writer. The other is his love affair with Zina, also a Russian immigrant.

The part of the novel describing in detail Fyodor’s father is particularly compassionate and memorable. Fyodor explores the writings of Gogol and Pushkin.

This novel is a demanding read with little plot momentum.

There are many beautifully written, thoughtful sentences, for example:

‘One night between sunset and river on the old bridge we stood, you and I. Will you ever forget it, I queried. that parallel swift that went by? And you answered so earnestly: Never! And what sobs made us suddenly shiver, what a cry life emitted in ‘flight! Till we die, till tomorrow, for ever, you and I on the old bridge one night.’

Highly recommended. A book to reread.

The author, in the novel preface, states that the novel is about Russian literature and not about himself. However, the novel reads like an autobiography, particularly in the first half of the book. For example, Fyodor’s father is a lepidopterist and Fyodor also takes an interest in butterflies and moths.

This book was first published in Russian in 1938.

"Дар", наверное, самое скучное, что я читала у Набокова (или я просто слишком давно читала "Другие берега"?), но это, конечно, не имеет никакого зн��чения. Никто не пишет, как он. Столько острого, радостного узнавания. Такое удовольствие, даже пассаж о Чернышевском.

"......but suddenly the unpleasant feeling of lateness was replaced in Fydor's soul by a distinct and somehow outrageously joyful decision not to appear at all for the lesson - to get off at the next stop and return home to his half-read book, to his unworldly cares, to the blissful mist in which his real life floated, to the complex, happy, devout work which had occupied him for about a year already. He knew that today he would receive the payment for several lessons, knew that otherwise he would have to smoke and eat again on credit, but he was quite reconciled to this for the sake of that energetic idleness (everything is here, in this combination), for the sake of the lofty truancy he was allowing himself. And he was allowing it not for the first time. Shy and exacting, living always uphill, spending all his strength in pursuit of the immumerable beings that flashed inside him, as if at dawn in a mythological grove, he could no linger force himself to mix with people either for money or for pleasure, and therefore he was poor and solitary. "

- Vladimir Nabokov (The Gift)

In my journey through books I always glimpsed flashes of myself in the characters. In The Gift, I came across this passage that exactly summerises my life and the lives of several thousand souls like me that lived down the ages and will continue to haunt the forgotten corners of the earth till the end of time.

How many times have I broken away from the 'acceptable' course of daily activities to hide away among the pages of a delightful book or to hold my pen feverishly between my ink-stained fingers and scratch across a page. How many job offers, how many invitations to go shopping, eating, movies I'd given up, how many things I've postponed, people I've forgotten to call because I was lost in wonder at the drama unfolding around me, between the folds of a book.

Oh the bliss, the bliss of swimming, sinking, floating in that abyss, caring nothing, dreaming everything, reading deep into the night, watching the pre-dawn sky trickle into my eyes. The numbing yet sensual joy of floating through the mundanity, of languishing at the office waiting, just waiting for the clock to strike 5.30 to rush out into the arms of magic waiting for me out there. And the inspiration a single book can spawn - the number of things to be made, flavours to be tasted, verses to be recited in soft whispers over and over again, rains to be drenched in, sunsets to be seen, blue-grey starry nights to be touched staining my face with their inky shadows, and the ideas, the stories the countless ones waiting to be captured, tended, fondled, loved and eventually written down.

Reading a book is like hiking to the mountains, each bend opening a new vista of ideas, histories, a new ways of thinking. And this book, despite its complexities, and meanderings, opened to me a new way to accept the way I am and inspired me to continue this madcap path that I've taken.

“Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever. This already dead inventory will not be resurrected in one's memory...”― Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift



A very Proust-inspired (memory, love, dreams, art) Nabokov. The last of his Russian novels, 'the Gift' is a complex and rich Künstlerroman and is one of those novels that makes me wish I spent more time in college studying Russian simply so I could catch the nuanced differences between the Chapters where Nabokov is mimicking Pushkin, Gogol, and other Russian novelists.

Nabokov always amazes me with his ability to provoke, entertain and awe his readers. There are some novelists where it is clear they are writing for a certain audience. Nabokov seems content just to write novels that entertain an audience of one (VN). If someone else gets his books, well, it is all just a sugary and mischievous bonus, but overall ... he'd prefer to be left alone to categorize and pin his rare butterflies and metric variations.

The Gift is Vladimir Nabokov’s best novel written in Russian – dense, voluminous, multifaceted, multilayered, multilevel, nostalgic, linguistically splendid and most beautiful.

Then, when I fell under the spell of butterflies, something unfolded in my soul and I relived all my father’s journeys, as if I myself had made them: in my dreams I saw the winding road, the caravan, the many-hued mountains, and envied my father madly, agonizingly, to the point of tears – hot and violent tears that would suddenly gush out of me at table as we discussed his letters from the road or even at the simple mention of a far, far place.

While reading The Gift I fell under its spell and relived all the hero’s emotional experiences: the gift of youth, the gift of love, the gift of talent, the gift of poetry…
Poems are like butterflies – they bring summer, flutter all around and charm.

Романы Набокова — штука сложная и, как правило, строго привязанные к определенному контексту, из-за чего они могут быстро потерять актуальность или требовать дополнительных знаний для полного погружения и понимания. В случае с «Даром» читателю следует хорошо разбираться в литерутурной «тусовочке» времен Чернышевского, что понять все претензии и вопросы, которые разбирает автор и его герой. Сама книга написана весьма по-набоковски: слог ласкает слух и грузит мозг.

К сожалению, центральная история без понимания контекста едва-ли увлекательна и сильно понимаема. Важно знать биографию автора и описываемые им события, чтобы проводить параллели. Без этого роман попросту не понять и удовольствия от него не получить.

This book is incredibly quotable, so this post is going to be pretty disastrous. I liked this book a lot, but of course it was difficult (it was, after all, Nabokov). I love his writing, though, and I love the way his brain works, and I love that in parts of this book he was anticipating so many other masterful things, like Lolita and other plots that appear randomly. I love that he loves his art so much, and that love comes through with the main character, and so many others. And I loved that the book focused so much more than his later (English) books on Russian life, the life left behind, the emigre experience, the dismay from afar at what was happening there, etc. A beautiful book, and there is almost no reason I am not giving it 5 stars, as I think anyone seriously contemplating a love for Nabokov should read this book.

I don't really know why I am not giving it five stars, still. I think I just didn't emotionally connect with it as much as I did Ada, or Ardour, or Invitation to a Beheading. But there are amazing and beautiful moments in it.

A warning: I tried to read it in my early 20s, and I had no idea what this book was about. It was actually incomprehensible to me. I literally remember not having any idea that this book had a plot. Reading it this year, at 30, it made so much sense and resonated so strongly with me... I may have to come back at 40.

--- QUOTES I LIKED / LOVED (there is lots) ----

"And those lowered lashes of modest price ... the nobility of the discount ... the altruism of advertisements ... all of this nasty imitation of good, which has a strange way of drawing in good people: Alexandra Yakovlevna, for example, confessed to me that when she goes shopping in familiar stores, she is morally transplanted to a special world where she grows intoxicated from the wine of honesty, from the sweetness of mutual favours, and replies to the salesman's incarnadine smile with a smile of radiant rapture." (3)

[[[a depiction of people carrying a mirror, which is one of my own favourite images from a time I saw it in Fredericksburg, VA - p. 4]]]

"When I reach the sites where I grew up and see this and that -- perhaps on the mountain pass to a kind of happiness which it is too early for me to know (I know only that when I reach it, it will be with pen in hand)." (23-4)

"(the Russian 'vy'), as a sick Frenchman addresses God" (37)

"he was tormented by the feeling that there was some line of thought he had not pursued to its conclusion that day and now could never finish." (51)

"and you would appreciate my radiant 's' if I could pour into your cupped hands some of those luminous sapphires that I touched as a child, trembling and not understanding when my mother, dressed for a ball, uncontrollably sobbing, allowed her perfectly celestial treasures to flow out of their abyss into her palm, out of their cases onto black velvet..." (72)

"And I also think of the fact that it sometimes seemed to me then that I was unhappy, but now I know that I was always happy, that that unhappiness was one of the colours of happiness." (103)

"It sometimes seems to me nowadays that -- who knows -- he might go off on his journeys not so much to seek something as to flee something, and that on returning, he would realize that it was still with him, inside him, unriddable, inexhaustible." (113)

"However that may have been, I am convinced that our life then really was imbued with a magic unknown in other families. From conversations with my father, from daydreams in his absence, ... life took on a kind of bewitching lightness that made me feel as if my own travels were about to begin. Thence, I borrow my wings today." (113)

"What did he think about? ... About the innate strangeness of human life, a sense of which he mysteriously transmitted to me? Or perhaps I am wrong in retrospectively forcing upon him the secret which he carries now, ... but simply was happy in that incompletely named world in which at every step he named the nameless." (117)

"If you like I'll admit it: I myself am a mere seeker of verbal adventures, and forgive me if I refuse to hunt down my fancies on my father's own collecting ground." (137)

"Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. ... but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to live with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever." (142)

"Since there were things he wanted to express just as naturally and unrestrainedly as the lungs want to expand, hence words suitable for breathing ought to exist." (152)

"None of this did he see for the moment, but it was all there: a small society of objects schooled to become invisible and in this finding their purpose, which they could only fulfil through the constancy of their miscellaneousness." (153-4)

"Love only what is fanciful and rare; what from the distance of a dream steals through; what knaves condemn to death and fools can't bear." (154)

"O swear to me that while the heartblood stirs, you will be true to what we shall invent." (154)

"Or else: the constant feeling that our days here are only pocket money, farthings clinking in the dark, and that somewhere is stocked the real wealth, from which life should know how to get dividends in the shape of dreams, tears of happiness, distant mountains." (161)

"Ought one not to reject any longing for one's homeland, for any homeland besides that which is with me, within me, which is stuck like the silver sand of the sea to the skin of my soles, lives in my eyes, my blood, gives depth and distance to the background of life's every hope?" (173)

"Russian prose, what crimes are committed in thy name!" (198)

[[[similarity between the executioner on p 200 and Invitation to a Beheading?, similarity to Pale Fire in description of possible plot on p 201]]]

"But it was to the past they drank, to past glamour and scandal, to a great shade ... but who would drink to a tremulous little old man with a tic, making clumsy paper boats for Yakut children somewhere in these fabulous backwoods?" (279)

"We would very much like this to revolve: egoism-altruism-egoism-altruism ... but the wheel stops from friction, What to do? Live, read, think. What to do? Work at one's own development in order to achieve the aim of life, which is happiness. What to do? (But Chernyshevski's own fate changed the business-like question to an ironic exclamation)." (279)

"As a matter of fact, the analysis of *any* book is awkward and pointless..." (302)

"There is a lack of metaphysical gallantry in this, but death deserves no more. Fear gives birth to sacred awe, sacred awe erects a sacrificial altar, its smoke ascends to the sky, there assumes the shape of wings, and bowing fear addresses a prayer to it. Religion has the same relation to man's heavenly condition that mathematics has to his earthly one: both the one and the other are merely the rules of the game. Belief in God and belief in numbers: local truth and truth of location. I know that death in itself is in no way connected with the topography of the hereafter, for a door is merely the exist from the house and not a part of its surroundings, like a tree or a hill. ... And then again: the unfortunate image of a 'road' to which the human mind is accustomed (life as a kind of journey) is a stupid illusion: we are not going anywhere, we are sitting at home." (307)

"If the poor in spirit enter the heavenly kingdom I can imagine how gay it is in there. I have seen enough of them on earth. Who else makes up the population of heaven? Swarms of screaming revivalists, grubby monks, lots of rosy, shortsighted souls of more or less Protestant manufacture - what deathly boredom!" (308)

"There pincers behind and this steely pain are quite comprehensible. Death steals up from behind and grasps you by the sides. Funny that I have thought of death all my life, and if I have lived, have lived only in the margin of a book I have never been able to read." (309)

[[[... poetry of railroad banks, butterflies, etc. - everything I love about railroad tracks, p 326]]]

"Where shall I put all these gifts with which the summer morning rewards me -- and only me? Save them up for future books? Use them immediately for a practical handbook: How to Be Happy? Or getting deeper, to the bottom of things: understand what is concealed behind all this, behind the play, the sparkle, the thick, green greasepaint of the foliage? For there really is something, there is something! And one wants to offer thanks but there is no one to thank. The list of donations already made: 10,000 days -- from Person Unknown." (326)

"I search beyond the barricades (of words, of senses, of the world) for infinity, where all, all the lines meet." (327)

"In these circumstances the attempt to comprehend the world is reduced to an attempt to comprehend taht which we ourselves have deliberately made incomprehensible." (340)

Não é um livro fácil e as razões para tal são várias — a estrutura é multilinear e descontínua; a forma é poética e de vocabulário rico mas escrito como torrente descritiva; e o contexto exigido é não só enorme como distante da maioria dos leitores contemporâneos. Não acontece muito, ou quase nada, em “O Dom”, muita nostalgia relatada por emigrantes russos fixados num espaço que é a cidade de Berlim nos anos 1920, e que tal como o espaço de Dublin, em “Ulisses” (1922) de Joyce, serve a Nabokov para agregar a estrutura fragmentada. Tudo parece sustentar-se num processo de regressão afetiva e na sua descrição por recurso a uma estilística de embelezamento máximo, completamente colada a Proust. Digamos que Nabokov, dotado de enorme virtuosismo, resolveu criar uma obra capaz de homenagear dois dos seus autores favoritos, mas a homenagem não se fica por aqui já que o tema do livro é nada menos que a Literatura Russa do século XIX, ou seja, a homenagem estende-se a Puchkin, Gogol, Tchékhov, Turgeniev, Tchernichevski entre muitos outros. Deste modo, para se poder iniciar algum envolvimento com a leitura desta obra convém conhecer algo destes autores, assim como deter algum conhecimento sobre o antes e o depois da Revolução Russa de 1917.

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[Publicado no VI, com imagens e links, em https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.lu/...]

Não conhecia todos os enunciados, faltava-me Puchkin e Tchernichevski, e por isso são os livros que se seguem, embora sejam dois autores em pólos opostos, ou seja, se Puchkin é o grande pai das letras russas, Tchernichevski é não só desconhecido fora da Rússia, como é aqui totalmente ridicularizado. Mas deixarei o meu comentário sobre o capítulo inteiro que se lhe dedica para quando acabar de ler o livro de Tchernichevski, que entretanto já comecei e em poucas páginas deu para quase compreender Nabokov. Digo quase porque tenho de confessar que me custou ler Nabokov, um dos meus autores de referência, num discurso de critica ad hominem. Aliás, não é por acaso que o capítulo não foi publicado aquando da primeira edição da obra em 1938. Ainda que perceba a qualidade muito baixa de Tchernichevski, só consigo compreender esta reação de Nabokov pelo caráter político que o livro de Tchernichevski adquiriu, ou porque o próprio Nabokov exerce uma crítica constante mesmo a si próprio como podemos ver no seguinte diálogo (Nabokov não gostava de Dostoiévski e era admirador de Flaubert):

“eu tenho gostos diferentes, hábitos diferentes; o seu Fet, por exemplo, não posso suportá-lo, e por outro lado sou um ardente admirador do autor de O Duplo e de Os Possessos, a quem você parece disposto a faltar ao… Há muito em si que não gosto, o seu estilo de São Petersburgo, a sua tara gaulesa, o seu neo-voltaireanismo e o fraco por Flaubert…” (p.342)

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As fotografias de Nabokov recordam-me sempre Hitchcock mas também a personalidade que ambos pareciam possuir — de estarem sempre prontos a pregar uma partida a alguém!

Existe um enredo amoroso no livro a que Nabokov faz referência no prefácio, diga-se semi-explicativo da obra, mas é um romance imensamente subtil, ainda que venha dar, em parte, resposta ao título. A essência do livro assenta no processo descritivo do mundo aos olhos de um jovem autor russo, recentemente emigrado para Berlim, à procura de se afirmar enquanto escritor, e nesse sentido, apesar de Nabokov dizer nesse prefácio que não é Fyodor, é ele quem ali vemos representado. Mais uma aproximação a Proust, que descreve o mundo através dos olhos de Marcel sem nunca dar conta de qualquer ligação com este. Aliás, na primeira parte o tom é bastante próximo do livro autobiográfico de Nabokov, “Fala Memória”, que só viria a escrever anos mais tarde. E já agora, a meio do livro acontece algo no mínimo estranho, ou talvez não, que é uma descrição breve do enredo de “Lolita” (1955), seguida de uma referência do protagonista que me obrigou a parar e ir verificar datas, dizendo “É estranho, pareço lembrar-me dos meus trabalhos futuros”. Ou seja, o romance existia muitos anos antes na cabeça de Nabokov.

Para se poder entender este texto, já disse que conhecer os autores acima é relevante mas é também relevante lerem mais sobre a obra — a sua data de criação, a vida de Nabokov, a sua fuga da Rússia, a política do país — e para tal recomendo vivamente o livro de Yuri Leving “Keys to the Gift: A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov's Novel”. Leving criou um compêndio das múltiplas abordagens possíveis à interpretação mas não é preciso lerem tudo, basta que leiam as entradas que mais vos interessarem. As chaves apresentadas por Leving vão desde a criação e publicação da obra ao contexto histórico do país e da literatura, passando pela análise da estrutura — altamente detalhada nos seus constituintes de título, enredo, narrativa, cenário, personagens, tema — ou do estilo, forma e método, ou ainda da receção crítica nas diferentes épocas, e muito mais. Digo que não é preciso ler tudo, porque o texto de Nabokov está tão carregado de símbolos e subtextos que tentar compreender tudo está apenas ao alcance de um labor intenso, fazendo deste uma boa obra para a realização de trabalhos académicos no campo da literatura.

Deixo uma breve explicação estrutural. O livro começa com um capítulo de contextualização da vida de Fyodor em Berlim, que aos poucos nos vai dando conta da sua vida passada em São Petersburgo, dos amigos deixados e dos novos entretanto criados. Nesta primeira fase Fyodor só escreve poemas. No segundo capítulo Fyodor recorda o pai, que tal como o pai de Nabokov morreu quando este tinha cerca de 25 anos, o capítulo é intenso e belo, e segundo os críticos segue o estilo de Puchkin. No terceiro capítulo temos uma mudança de espaço e o encontro com a amada, a escrita é menos embelezada mas mais escorreita, o estilo mudou novamente porque agora é Gogol que Nabokov nos dá. O quarto é o tal capítulo banido, não segue propriamente Tchernichevski, já que a abordagem é profundamente satírica, mas é completamente diferente de tudo o que veio antes e virá no último. Por fim, voltamos ao nosso herói Fyodor e a Zina, com o mundo a desejar recompor-se e a querer criar espaço para que o espírito do artista possa florescer.

O livro termina mais uma vez homenageando Proust, já que é dado a entender que o livro que lemos será o que Fyodor escreveu, e tal como em Proust, cria-se uma urgência por voltar ao início e reiniciar a leitura, reler tudo com um novo olhar, capaz de ler mais dentro das múltiplas camadas que protegem o sentir de Nabokov em “O Dom”, já que é inevitável sentirmos ao longo de toda a leitura que muito do que vamos lendo é-nos vedado, não só por falta de referências, mas também porque o próprio texto trabalha num modo auto-referencial muito joyciano.

Sobre a profundidade da análise da psicologia humana, algo caro a Nabokov, um estudioso da psicologia e muito crítico da fantochada de Freud, veja-se o seguinte descrito do que responde Fyodor a um potencial crítico do seu livro:

“Ao princípio queria escrever-lhe uma carta a agradecer, sabe, com uma referência comovente ao meu pouco mérito e assim por diante, mas depois pensei que dessa forma iria introduzir um odor humano intolerável no domínio da liberdade de opinião. E além disso, se escrevi um bom livro, era a mim que devia agradecer e não a si, tal como você deve agradecer a si próprio e não a mim por compreender o que é bom, não é verdade? Se nos pomos com vénias um ao outro, então, logo que um pare, o outro sentir-se-á magoado e ir-se-á embora vexado.” (p.339)

No final questiono-me se o título português é o melhor, mas por mais que procure, as interpretações são tantas que não é possível dizer muito, a não ser talvez que o título em inglês dá-se melhor às múltiplas leituras. No inglês (“The Gift”) pode significar Dom mas pode significar também Prenda, e se o nosso título atira imediatamente ao virtuosismo do escritor, o inglês permite ainda apontar para a homenagem à Literatura Russa, funcionando este livro como uma prenda de Nabokov em modo de despedida, já que este seria o seu último livro escrito em russo.


Publicado no VI, com imagens e links, em https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.lu/...

(Dei 5 estrelas, embora o prazer da minha leitura, tendo apenas em conta o livro em si, chegue apenas às 4. Terei de o ler uma segunda vez, depois de realizar mais algumas leituras, para poder entrar mais dentro do livro e assim chegar a uma absorção mais completa do todo.)

Врёт нам всем, конечно, В.В., врёт и не краснеет. Врёт, что не пишет про себя, а потом выдаёт “Дар” и “Другие берега”, говорит, что не любит романы с идеей, а потом пишет “Приглашение на казнь”. Всё же не ассоциировать писателя Сирина с главным героем невозможно: у них похожая история, похожие взгляды на жизнь, идентичное мнение об искусстве. Что с того, что отец реального Набокова был юристом, а отец зазеркального - путешественником и биологом? Фёдор - персонаж в характерном плане нарочно проработанный слабо, его личность сама по себе отходит на второй план, а главным становится талант, дар, художественный взгляд, чувственность, - прозрачный сосуд, который Набоков наполняет собой. Интересны становятся не лоскутки автобиографичности, интересен маленький мутный глазок, который даёт заглянуть во внутренний мир автора, который он всё время старательно скрывал от публики. В этом смысле роман, который В.В. писал как гимн жизни и искусству (разумеется, чистому, а не как у какого-то там прыщавого Чернышевского), оказывается в некоторой мере психологичен. Читатель, немного привыкнув к дурману Набоковского слога и расквитавшись (скорее всего, с помощью сторонних источников) с его многослойными рассуждениями о литературе и истории, может сделать шаг в сторону и попытаться понять, какие внутренние процессы стоят за всем написанным. Здесь не просто в очередной раз Набоков “выдумывает уродов и сталкивает их между собой” (выражение некого А. Гарфа из “Нового слова”), а ещё и выражает своё отношение к ним почти напрямую. И говорит, конечно, не только о них, но и о себе (Фёдоре). Он бесконечно самовлюблён и как всякий нарцисс глубоко не уверен в себе - чего, конечно, Набоков старается не показывать, и от того Фёдор выходит таким неправдоподобны: неуязвимым полубогом мира искусства, который разве что может позволить себе поспать до обеда (прихоть гения) и забыть о свидании с возлюбленной. За кадром остаются все его возможные неудачи и всё прощается герою за его талант. Даже свои стихи (сам он) ругает неубедительно, а уже повесть по Чернышевского - и подавно. Приём понятный - цель Набокова продемонстрировать единственный, на его взгляд, хороший способ смотреть на мир и литературу, и потому враг в книге нелеп и жалок, а главный герой и его слегка переиначенное отражение (Кончеев) блистательны и всемогущи. Занятно, что по мнению Фёдора одним из главный качеств хорошего литератора является жалость, однако сам он испытывает её крайне избирательно - ни о какой жалости к людям речи не идёт, если это не его близкие, - всех остальных он готов талантливо и гаденько высмеять. В мире Набокова есть место только для него самого и его отражений и слуг. Это проявляется в Зине, которая отвечает так, как Фёдор ожидает, стремится быть полезной и защищает от нападок. Сам Набоков в своей настоящей жизни руководствовался теми же принципами хотя бы отчасти - его жена Вера первое время фактически обеспечивала семью, покорно терпела роман на стороне, а затем приняла на себя все домашние обязанности, катала В.В. на машине, отвечала на звонки и даже писала на доске на лекциях в университете. В Кончееве, ещё одном приятеле Фёдора, многие узнали Ходасевича, одного из немногих современных Набокову поэтов, которым он восторгался. Смешно от того, что сам он утверждал, будто в Кончееве, а не в Фёдоре выписан скорее он сам в берлинский период, а ещё смешнее мелькнувший на минуту литератор Владимиров “псевдобританского пошиба”, также списанный с автора, и все они - самые достойнейшие из достойных представителей искусства в неуклюжем и плохоньком мирке пошляков. Могли бы образовать дивный тройственный союз. Сохранились наброски продолжения “Дара”, где в конце Фёдор наяву встречается со своим отражением и зачитывает ему продолжение Пушкинской “Русалки”, которое сам написал, - вот уж наконец-то счастливый финал.
Я не считаю, что всё это плохо, что роман плох (он великолепен), это только то, что я заметила во время чтения и что показалось мне забавным. Взгляд Набокова на мир безусловно глубок и оригинален, однако хочется мягко поиронизировать над его нарциссизмом и закрытостью. По моему мнению, всё это говорит о том, что талант не связан с какими-либо человеческими качествами, и выводить для него формулу с помощью красивых слов - бесполезно. Набоков - мой любимый писатель, но принять его мировосприятие я не готова, так как в нём остаётся слишком мало пространства для манёвра. Ему бы это не понравилось, но всё же есть красота в разнообразии. Да и сам он, того не признавая, нуждается в пошляках, материалистах типа Чернышевского и мрачноватых литературных врагов парижской школы - ведь кого без них он бы высмеял, над кем бы тогда он возвышался и тешил болезненное самолюбие?
В “Даре” есть ещё одна, уже намеренно задуманная автором, плоскость, чисто литературная, где Набоков высмеивает или, что реже, хвалит современных ему критиков, поэтов и писателей. Неподготовленному читателю почти невозможно будет разобраться в хитрых намёках и запутанных аллюзиях, особенно учитывая то, что большинство обсуждаемых имён уже давно канули для широкого читателя в лету, - а тогда некоторые шпильки вызвали бурное обсуждение и обиды на дерзкого автора. Об этом подробнее можно почитать в комментарии к “Дару”, написанному Александром Долинином. Вкратце основная мысль будет звучать, конечно, так: “лучший современный русскоязычный писатель - я, Владимир Владимирович Набоков-Сирин. Но поэт Ходасевич тоже ничего”.
Несмотря на мои попытки поязвить, книга, конечно, абсолютно великолепна. Рассматривать её можно в разных плоскостях, можно вооружиться ворохом исследований и прослеживать дорожки, по которым течёт Набоковский яд, можно попытаться снять защитный слой с нервной авторской души, можно учиться по ней видеть мир в полных красках, а можно просто взять и наслаждаться талантом автора, не задумываясь о лежащих под ногами глубинах, - хотя он, не сомневаюсь, этого бы не одобрил.

Maestoso, tutto in questo libro è di livello irraggiungibile.

unspeakably russian I love it

you'd better come equipped with your Cambridge history to russian lit because guess what we're getting niche
much love thank you so much ciel !