Modern Library Top 100 Non-Fiction Books of the 20th CenturyīRITANNICA: Your search: 'vladimir nabokov' See also: Vladimir Nabokov ( 3 books reviewed)īrothers Judd Top 100 of the 20th Century: Non-Fiction Never liked any of his other books, do yourself a favor and read this one.Įven the passages that defy comprehension are beautiful. Must be added the Bolsheviks utter destruction of this world. Memoir so brilliantly transports the reader to what seems to have beenĪ wonderful and altogether innocent existence that to that list of crimes Than this, but this richly textured, impossibly specific and deeply moving

The crimes of the commissars are without number and most are far greater Lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.Īnd finally: I reserve for myself the right to yearn

The nostalgia I have beenĬherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of Who 'hates the Reds' because they 'stole' his money and My old (since 1917) quarrel with the Soviet dictatorship Out is not the political or the economic one but the historical and cultural Identified with the anti-Communist émigré movement, thisīook is its own kind of indictment of the USSR. While to the best of my knowledge Nabokov was never particularly In so doing he recreates late czarist Russia in loving, painstakingĭetail. It is altogether fitting then that his memoirs too shouldįor the most part, Nabokov's mission here is literally to let his memory So I am more than willing to acknowledge that he was a singular and immense Top 100 Novels of the Century, and, of course, to read him is to beĮxposed to an English language and a prose style that one little knew existed. Review), both of which made the Modern Library Much like what I understand in Pale Fire (see Orrin's Much of his work is so obscure as to defy my comprehension, but I do very Is one of the century's greatest writers.

I honestly don't consider myself competent to judge whether Nabokov

Nabokov autobiography