Volshebnik

by Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov

1986 · 127 pages

russian fiction
deviant behavior
stepfathers

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About this book

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.

Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

From Wikiquote

And there are things that are hard to talk about—you'll rub off their marvelous pollen at the touch of a word.
What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion? How do God and Devil combine to form a live dog?
Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a premature moonbeam of some rarer truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof.