Bend Sinister (Audible Audio Edition) Vladimir Nabokov Robert Blumenfeld Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Bend Sinister (Audible Audio Edition) Vladimir Nabokov Robert Blumenfeld Audible Studios Books
The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America, and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state.
Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man. In a folly of bureaucratic bungling and ineptitude, the government attempts to co-opt Krug's support in order to validate the new regime.
Bend Sinister (Audible Audio Edition) Vladimir Nabokov Robert Blumenfeld Audible Studios Books
Disturbing. Like something broken. A kind of horror novel. A nightmare. May no one ever have to endure such a nightmare... and in a way... with the state of current events in the US... perhaps, we kind of actually are enduring a kind of horrific nightmare. Hopefully, we will be able to wake up from it soon, and look back upon the era receding into the dark mists of the river of time. Naturally, Bend Sinister, is perfectly written by Nobokov the Master Wordsmith of many languages.Product details
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Bend Sinister (Audible Audio Edition) Vladimir Nabokov Robert Blumenfeld Audible Studios Books Reviews
This book belongs on the same reading list with Orwell's "1984" and Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" --particularly for those who currently romanticize Socialism. This book provides a stark reminder of the realities of governmental control in the hands of a few. That said, this book is also a compelling read in terms of it's literary accomplishments. Expertly written. The author's turn of phrase, vivid descriptions, and depth of insight affords the reader a thoroughly enjoyable ride.
No doubt what many reviewers have noted -- this is a complex book, working on different levels, from different perspectives (I think the 1st person pronoun starts showing up toward the end!). Short of serious scrutiny and multiple readings, I have not captured much of what is going on in this book. Nevertheless, this was my first Nabokov and it's like discovering Rushdie such an incredibly distinctive, engaging voice and, in this case, a genius with language. And despite the complexity, there is a simple story here, and it made me laugh out-loud several times, it conjured up many powerful images, the character of Adam Krug is unforgettable, and it is indeed powerful satire.
My one criticism is that for all of his linguistic might, Nabokov may not know the human heart. The story has much to do with Adam and his son. Yet for the most of the book, this relationship is touched upon only superficially. Even a few revealing episodes between father and son could have made this book more powerful. Likewise his deceased wife. He loved her -- but the basis for his love is not clear. A basis for fondness and admiration, yes, but not love.
Nabo is one of my favorites and this is up there with Pnin and King Queen Knave. You should read these some tme.
A more masterfully oblique narrative structure than what Nabokov accomplishes in Bend Sinister would be hard to imagine, short of James Joyce. Don't let that comparison scare you off, however! For all its complexity, Bend Sinister is thrillingly immediate and engrossing, a "page turner" rather than a foot-note finder.
Embedded in the wild allusions and tipsy imagery of Nabokov's hyper-English, there's a heart-stopping narrative, the story of Adam Krug, an intellectual grizzly of a man, whose wife has just died and who struggles to rescue himself from mental and his son from actual catastrophe. That personal drama unfolds within the larger struggle of Krug, the man of genius, to maintain his detachment from the tyranny of "mass man" established in his fictional country by his abominable former schoolmate, Paduk the Toad. Paduk's overweening urge is to suborn Krug to his will, and for a creature of the lowest cunning, Paduk has resources of nearly comic-book unreality. Krug's resistance, morally superior at every point, curlicues ever deeper into nightmarish negation.
It's inexplicable to me what a leap of levels of magnitude Nabokov's sheer stylistic mastery took, from his very fine novels in Russian to his incomparable novels in English. Bend Sinister was his first novel published in America after six years of residence. Shall we just proclaim that the wealth of literary resources of the English language offered Nabokov a richer medium? That sounds like chauvinism, but how else can such a transformation be explained?
The narration of Bend Sinister occurs in a "no one else's land" tilting between stream-of-consciousness and the Omniscient Narrator, with the changes of voice craftily muted until the very final chapter, when the 'author' reveals his omnipotence. Krug's streaming consciousness shifts without warning from wakeful planning to fateful dreaming, and within the surreality of Paduk's tyranny it's nearly impossible to delimit real horrors amid unimaginable villainies. Odd intrusions of Slavic and Germanic languages (in parentheses) intensify this obliquity of narrative, as if the "author" feels compelled to translate Krug's imagery back into his proper linguistic cognition. As the action-drama of Krug's struggle to save his son slithers into hideous sadism, the competing languages lose their boundaries in a parenthetical chaos. And then our "author" mercifully intervenes... from the sensory devastation of Krug's mind we slip into the polished poetry of the author's, at his writing table, playing with a moth.
Bend Sinister has been taken to be Nabokov's "most overtly political" novel, his expression of protest against the Soviet Communist ruination of the Russia from which he fled. And perhaps that is what Nabokov had in mind. The portrayal of the Toad's inept yet overwhelming misrule, however, isn't nearly as specific to Stalinist Russia as the details of the imaginary setting suggest. The actual conduct of the Toad's toadies reminds me more of Nero, Idi Amin, or Pinochet. or any mad demagogue that has the whole life of his people in his fists for whatever reason. There's an unsatisfactory tinge of superman-worship in Nabokov's political philosophy, reminiscent of Nietzsche, Ibsen, Ouspensky, GB Shaw, Ayn Rand - that is, the fear of the exceptional man being crushed by the mass man. Paduk's organ is his Party of the Average man, and Krug refuses to be average. Communist Russia's catastrophe, I submit, was not the crushing of the exceptional man by the average, but just the opposite, the crushing and cruel exploitation of the ordinary people by an elite of extraordinary b_st_rds, proclaiming hypocritical ideals. The 'Vanguard of the Proletariat" is surely the most elitist notion ever propounded.
Here's an interesting passage from Krug's self-imaginings
"The trouble with Krug, thought Krug, was tha for long summer years and with enormous success he had delicately taken apart the systems of others and had acquired thereby a reputation for an impish sense of humour and delightful common sense whereas in fact he was a big sad hog of a man and the 'common sense' affair had turned out to be the gradual digging of a pit to accomodate pure smiling madness.... so that he finally began regarding himself (robust rude Krug) as an illusion or rather as a shareholder in an illusion which was highly appreciated by a great number of cultured people..."
Self and the illusion of self, the doubling of consciousness, the watcher watching himself being watched -- such recurrent themes in Nabokov's books. With the boundaries between Krug and his Imaginer so deftly smudged, shouldn't we be tempted to take this passage as a confession?
It's the language, the symphonic glory of imagery and allusion, that in the end makes everything Nabokov wrote so absorbing, despite any bizarre characterization and/or appalling subject matter. I've often puzzled over Nabokov's notorious inability to appreciate music, to hear music as anything more than annoying noise. I think it was because he was unable to stop the flow of words in his mind, to hear without thinking and feeling in words. Perhaps that was what made him the writer he was, that every perceptual cranny of his mind was stuffed with words. And perhaps the ability to hear without words or see without words makes some people musicians or painters.
Bend Sinister is a very great novel, not just because it opens the gate to Nabokov's literary estate, but in its own right. It's easier to love than Lolita, and easier to grasp than Pale Fire. If you haven't yet become an admirer, this might be the best possible book to read first. If you love later Nabokov, you'll be astonished at how fully developed his art was already in his first American novel.
In this Kafka like world, before there was a Kafka, this novel let’s everyone know who was there before we reached 1984, and far more terrifying than the Hunger Games. Thanks to Nabokov’s humor, this makes a great edition for the Nabokov reader. The story sets us all up for no show down, but reminds readers who is in charge, Nabokov.
Nabokov's intense and well-written book about dystopia. I recommend this for readers of 1984, Brave New World, and other books like them. Nabokov is always enjoyable, and this novel is no exception.
A great book recommended by a friend. Would continue the legacy and recommend this book to any of my book loving friends. The title is a little strange but so is the main character! He's awesome to get to know and his story is even more interesting than he is. If there's a thunderstorm and you're settling down with some tea near the fire place, this is the book you want to read. I absolutely loved it and will continue to love it as I read it again and again. My advice is not to read it quickly but take your time and analyse all of the characters moves and words to better understand their motives.
Disturbing. Like something broken. A kind of horror novel. A nightmare. May no one ever have to endure such a nightmare... and in a way... with the state of current events in the US... perhaps, we kind of actually are enduring a kind of horrific nightmare. Hopefully, we will be able to wake up from it soon, and look back upon the era receding into the dark mists of the river of time. Naturally, Bend Sinister, is perfectly written by Nobokov the Master Wordsmith of many languages.
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