Transparent Things

Transparent Things

Vladimir Nabokov

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

"Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero - sullen, gawky Hugh Person - to Switzerland... As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride... Eight years later - following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment - Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past... The several strands of dream, memory, and time [are] set off against the literary theorizing of R. and, more centrally, against the world of observable objects." Martin Amis


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  • verbava
    Mar 24, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

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  • Dec 17, 2024
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    A little more dizzying and delirious even than Nabokov usually gets - and therefore a little harder to move through. Still delicious reading, but Hugh Person is a clumsier and less charming protagonist than Nabokov usually offers.

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