Nabokov: Three Novels

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course, three novels by Vladimir Nabokov-Invitation to a Beheading (1935-6), The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941), and Pnin (1957)-are studied in depth with an eye toward their use of language, metanarrative, and the relationship between the author and reader relationship. The first novel is Nabokov's penultimate Russophone work, the second his first Anglophone work, and the third a work written at a time when Nabokov's concern with translation, from language to language, past to present, and cruelty to compassion are at their height.