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The Unreal Life Of Sergey Nabokov (2010)

by Paul Russell(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1573447196 (ISBN13: 9781573447195)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Cleis Press

review 1: I'm not quite sure how to review this fictional autobiography of the slightly (by 11 months) younger gay brother of Vladimir Nabokov. As a biography one can't help but judge the book by its subject and as such Sergey Nabokov was not an overtly likeable one. It's very much the case of a not particularly interesting (and overwhelmingly clichéd) person living a particularly interesting life during a particularly interesting time. And by overwhelmingly clichéd I mean a young boy who adores his pederast leaning uncle turning into a young promiscuous man living a uniquely vapid, shallow and superficial type of life and using rich men for money until he actually managed to fall in love with one of them, which presumably makes living off of him more moral. Despite upper class up... morebringing and an excellent education, he fails to make something of himself, develops an opium habit and spends his time resenting his infinitely more talented brother. To better show his character one only has to read the paragraph where Sergey discusses his initial fascination with Hitler due to the Nazis' stylish black and white posters and their utilization of young men in uniforms. Eventually his indiscretion leads him to a tragic end. His brother, of course, becomes a world renown novelist. Yet, despite my thoughts on the titular character, as a historical fiction, this was quite excellent, well written book that vividly brought to life the first four turbulent decades of Europe's last century from original perspectives and shedding some light on the homosexual community of the time. Shelved under gay fiction, this might easily be marginalized as such and such alone, yet it really shines in its historical aspect the most. Nabokov is presented here in a notably shabby fashion. Presumably it's all a matter of perspective.
review 2: A good easy read but also an unsatisfying one. The author has clearly done a lot of research before writing his book but this seem to have come in the way of the imaginative process. The repetitive name-dropping and the apparent systematic shoehorning of known historical facts seem to leave no space whatsoever for a true discovery of the hero and his inner life as the author may have seen them. A book victim of its ambition, I think. less

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