Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue.

This book is now a ring. When you've received the book, please, make a quick entry so everybody knows where the book is.
When you get towards the end of the book, please, contact the next person for their address to send the book forward.


1. cat207 (Australia; Australia/Intl)
2. Miss-Owl (Australia; Australia/Intl) <--- Book is here
3. literarylover (USA; US/Intl)
4.

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to Australia!!

Arrived in today's mail along with two others. Thank you turnpages.

I'm not really a big fan of poetry, but this was good.

Have PMed Miss-Owl for an address.

Heading off in tomorrow's mail.

Safely received! Thanks, turnpages & cat207. I've had a quick flick through the foreword and this looks like a fun read - just in time for the school holidays!

This is a very quirky read, and I'm afraid I didn't quite do it justice, as I've been labouring 13 hour days (much like Kinbote himself, I suspect) marking the HSC English exam (high school graduation exams for my state) for the past three weeks. Ten (brain almost-dead) pages a night is probably not the best way to read this book, and I would very much have liked to have kept a finger in the poem & a finger in Kinbote's idiosyncratic (and highly subjective) commentary.

That said, my reading experience reminded me of my students' reactions to Calvino's "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller", which also adheres to Roland Barthes' principle that true pleasure can be truly appreciated only through interruption. Hence, there are all sorts of fascinating little vignettes about the Zemblan king, only to get rudely jolted aside by inane passages about butterflies and whatnot. And as for creating those unsettling, seedy, megalomaniacal protagonists (a la Lolita), Nabokov absolutely excels.

Thank you, turnpages, for sharing, and cat207, for sending. Now PMing literarylover for addy.

This is a very quirky read, and I'm afraid I didn't quite do it justice, as I've been labouring 13 hour days (much like Kinbote himself, I suspect) marking the HSC English exam (high school graduation exams for my state) for the past three weeks. Ten (brain almost-dead) pages a night is probably not the best way to read this book, and I would very much have liked to have kept a finger in the poem & a finger in Kinbote's idiosyncratic (and highly subjective) commentary.

That said, my reading experience reminded me of my students' reactions to Calvino's "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller", which also adheres to Roland Barthes' principle that true pleasure can be truly appreciated only through interruption. Hence, there are all sorts of fascinating little vignettes about the Zemblan king, only to get rudely jolted aside by inane passages about butterflies and whatnot. And as for creating those unsettling, seedy, megalomaniacal protagonists (a la Lolita), Nabokov absolutely excels.

Thank you, turnpages, for sharing, and cat207, for sending. Now PMing literarylover for addy.