Vladimir Nabokov, Sogliadatai [The Eye]

Michael Rodgers (The Open University)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1930

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Composed in 1930 whilst Vladimir Nabokov resided in Berlin (where he lived for fifteen years after being in exile from Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution),

The Eye

[

Sogliadatai

], ostensibly a lengthy short-story, is instead Nabokov’s leanest novel. It follows the oscillating perspectives of Gospodin Smurov, a member of the Russian intelligentsia, in the period of 1924-25. The novel’s main focus, as its title hints to and as its readers are asked to piece together, is that of kaleidoscopic perspectives in a world where the demarcations between fantasy and “reality” (ensnared by Nabokov’s mandatory inverted commas) are conflated. Its articulation of existential problems through an angst-ridden narrator imbues the text with both pre-Sartrean nihilism and post-Dostoevskian…

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1670 words

Citation: Rodgers, Michael. "Sogliadatai". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 September 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1962, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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