Mary (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Nabokov, Vladimir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141191473 ISBN 13: 9780141191478

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2009

Synopsis

'Nabokov can move you to laughter in the way that masters can - to laughter that is near to tears' Guardian

Lev Ganin is a young officer sharing a boarding house in Berlin with a host of Russian émigrés. Alone in his room, he dreams of his first love, Mary. Awash with memories of youth and idyllic scenes of pre-Revolution Russia, Ganin becomes convinced that Mary is in fact the wife of a fellow-boarder, due to arrive at this very house soon. He longs for her arrival, when he can whisk her away and leave everything behind ...

About this title

Review:

He did us all an honour by electing to use, and transform, our language. (Anthony Burgess)

Nabokov can move you to laughter in the way that masters can - to laughter that is near to tears (The Guardian)

From the Back Cover:

In a Berlin rooming house filled with an assortment of serio-comic Russian émigrés, Lev Ganin, a vigorous young officer poised between his past and his future, relives his first love affair. His memories of Mary are suffused with the freshness of youth and the idyllic ambience of pre-revolutionary Russia. In stark contrast is the decidedly unappealing boarder living in the room next to Ganin's, who, he discovers, is Mary's husband, temporarily separated from her by the Revolution but expecting her imminent arrival from Russia. Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically. - John Updike

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141191473
• ISBN 13: 9780141191478
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128