Vladimir Nabokov

New books on Nabokov

By matthew_roth, 26 March, 2021

Friends,

March continues to be an especially exciting month for Nabokov studies. In addition to the release of the latest Nabokov Online Journal, we also have the publication of two new collections of topical essays and one new monograph:

1. Teaching Nabokov's Lolita in the #MeToo Era, Elena Rakhimova-Sommers, Ed. (See news page for full description)

2. Lolita in the Afterlife: On Beauty, Risk, and Reckoning with the Most Indelible and Shocking Novel of the Twentieth Century, Jenny Minton Quigley, Ed. (Yes, she's the daughter of Walter Minton): "A vibrant collection of sharp and essential modern pieces on Vladimir Nabokov’s perennially provocative book—with original contributions from a stellar cast of prominent twenty-first century writers.
In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was published in the United States to immediate controversy and bestsellerdom. More than sixty years later, this phenomenal novel generates as much buzz as it did when originally published. Central to countless issues at the forefront of our national discourse—art and politics, race and whiteness, gender and power, sexual trauma—Lolita lives on, in an afterlife as blinding as a supernova." [Aside: I'm enjoying this book, but as for the blurb, who writes these things?]

3. Nabokov and the Real World: Between Appreciation and Defense, Robert Alter: "From award-winning literary scholar Robert Alter, a masterful exploration of how Nabokov used artifice to evoke the dilemmas, pain, and exaltation of the human condition."

Happy reading!

Matt Roth

P.S. If you have an interest in reviewing either of the first two titles above for the next issue of the NOJ, please feel free to email me.