Vladimir Nabokov wrote literary fiction marked by elaborate language, unreliable narrators and games with memory, identity and authorship. Lolita is narrated by Humbert Humbert, whose polished and manipulative account of his abuse of Dolores Haze forces the reader to separate the narrator's rhetoric from what he is describing. Pale Fire takes an even more unusual form: a long poem by the fictional John Shade is surrounded by commentary from Charles Kinbote, whose notes gradually take over the book. Pnin offers a gentler portrait of a Russian émigré professor in the United States, while Speak, Memory is Nabokov's memoir of childhood, exile and recollection. Lolita is the best-known entry point, but Pale Fire shows more clearly how far Nabokov could turn commentary, unreliable narration and literary form into part of the plot itself. Read more Less
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