Vladimir Nabokov s early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse strange yet oddly endearing chess playing genius Luzhin Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world a phantom As he confronts the fiery swift swooping Italian Grandmaster Turati he brings into play his carefully devised defence Making masterly play of metaphor and imagery The Defense is the book that of his early works Nabokov felt contains and diffuses the greatest warmth
Epic fantasy in the tradition of Trudi Canavan, Fiona McIntosh and Robert Jordan. Sara Douglass returns us to a world in the grip of prophecy and war ! 'Welcome Axis, into the House of SunSoar and into my heart! Sing well and fly high and may nothing and no-one tear your feet from the path of the Star Dance again.' Axis has fled to Talon Spike, the home of the Icarii, where he must learn to wield his Enchanter powers to fulfil the Prophecy. Somehow he must lead the Icarii and the Avar back into Achar, defeat his half-brother Borneheld and reunite the former kingdom of Tencendor under his rule. Meanwhile, Gorgrael waits impatiently for winter, to continue his destructive drive into the heart of Achar!
Lev Ganin is a young officer sharing a boarding house in Berlin with a host of Russian emigres. 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.
Nabokov described this novella, written in Paris in 1939 but only published twenty years later, as 'the first little throb of Lolita'. The plot is similar: a middle-aged man wedding an unattractive widow in order to indulge his paedophilic obsession with her daughter. However, The Enchanter has an utterly different atmosphere, as time, place and even names remain a mystery. Nabokov transforms his protagonist's attempts to lull his twelve-year-old step-daughter into a state of 'enchantment' into a graceful, chilling fairytale.
La inusual libertad de criterio de Nabokov brilla en el Curso sobre el Quijote con particular intensidad, pues frente a un libro como el de Cervantes, tan rutinariamente cubierto de incienso, Nabokov no vacila en señalar fallos y tropiezos, ni en desfacer topicos contumaces, precisamente para resaltar los valores autenticos de la historia de don Quijote y Sancho. Esas lecciones cervantinas, reconstruidas por Fredson Bowers a partir de los apuntes del escritor ruso, son una ocasion unica para asistir a sus clases legendarias y para releer a fondo la novela de Cervantes.
Lolita non e solo un meraviglioso romanzo, ma e uno dei grandi testi della passione. America, Lolita: questi due nomi sono di fatto i protagonisti del romanzo, scrutati senza tregua dall'occhio inappagabile di Humbert Humbert e di Nabokov. Realta geografica e personaggio sono arrivati a sovrapporsi con prodigiosa precisione, al punto che si puo dire: l'America e Lolita, Lolita e l'America.
