The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. It is first and foremost a compelling narrative about a civilized man and his child caught up in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man. In a folly of bureaucratic bungling and ineptitude, the government attempts to co-opt Krug's support in order to validate the new regime.
Bend Sinister (Vintage International)
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About the Author
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Nabokovs were known for their high culture and commitment to public service, and the elder Nabokov was an outspoken opponent of antisemitism and one of the leaders of the opposition party, the Kadets. In 1919, following the Bolshevik revolution, he took his family into exile. Four years later he was shot and killed at a political rally in Berlin while trying to shield the speaker from right-wing assassins.
The Nabokov household was trilingual, and as a child Nabokov was already reading Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, alongside the popular entertainments of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. As a young man, he studied Slavic and romance languages at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his honors degree in 1922. For the next eighteen years he lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin and supporting himself through translations, lessons in English and tennis, and by composing the first crossword puzzles in Russian. In 1925 he married Vera Slonim, with whom he had one child, a son, Dmitri.
Having already fled Russia and Germany, Nabokov became a refugee once more in 1940, when he was forced to leave France for the United States. There he taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He also gave up writing in Russian and began composing fiction in English. In his afterword to Lolita he claimed: "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses--the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions--which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way." [p. 317] Yet Nabokov's American period saw the creation of what are arguably his greatest works, Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962), as well as the translation of his earlier Russian novels into English. He also undertook English translations of works by Lermontov and Pushkin and wrote several books of criticism. Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.
The Nabokov household was trilingual, and as a child Nabokov was already reading Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, alongside the popular entertainments of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. As a young man, he studied Slavic and romance languages at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his honors degree in 1922. For the next eighteen years he lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin and supporting himself through translations, lessons in English and tennis, and by composing the first crossword puzzles in Russian. In 1925 he married Vera Slonim, with whom he had one child, a son, Dmitri.
Having already fled Russia and Germany, Nabokov became a refugee once more in 1940, when he was forced to leave France for the United States. There he taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He also gave up writing in Russian and began composing fiction in English. In his afterword to Lolita he claimed: "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses--the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions--which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way." [p. 317] Yet Nabokov's American period saw the creation of what are arguably his greatest works, Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962), as well as the translation of his earlier Russian novels into English. He also undertook English translations of works by Lermontov and Pushkin and wrote several books of criticism. Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.
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By J. Cameron-Smith
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Format:Paperback
In a fictitious European state now known as Padukgrad, lives the world-renowned philosopher Adam Krug. A new philosophy, known as `Ekwilism' has led the takeover of the state which is now being run by Paduk and his `Party of the Average Man'. Ekwilism discourages the idea of anyone being different from anyone else, and promotes the state as the prominent good in society. Naturally, equality and happiness for all does not require (or tolerate) individualism or freedom of thought. Adam Krug is grieving over the recent death of his wife and, at first, believes that there is no threat in Paduk's activities. After all, Krug knew Paduk at school where he once bullied Paduk and referred to him disparagingly as `the Toad'.
`Nothing can happen to Krug the Rock.'
But those who oppose Paduk's Ekwilist philosophy are being arrested, and this includes many of Krug's friends. Paduk attempts to persuade Krug to promote the state philosophy, but Krug refuses. When Krug's young son David is kidnapped, he capitulates and is prepared to promote Ekwilism in order to have David returned. Alas, there has been a mix-up, and the child returned to Adam Krug is not his son David. David has been accidentally tortured and killed. Krug is also killed, after being driven to madness by the realization that freedom of thought is no longer his once the person he cares for most in the world is killed.
`Individual lives are insecure; but we guarantee the immortality of the State.'
And the title, `Bend Sinister'? Nabokov wrote that: `This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world.'
It's not the story so much that held my attention in this novel as the way Nabokov structured it. The use of chess metaphors: a form of constrained movement and confrontation which sees the story finish in checkmate; the crossing of bridges; and reflections on the qualities of puddles each have a role in the narrative. In this novel, Nabokov has constructed and controls a dystopian society which he also extinguishes once he's finished with it.
`Twang. A good night for mothing.'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
`Nothing can happen to Krug the Rock.'
But those who oppose Paduk's Ekwilist philosophy are being arrested, and this includes many of Krug's friends. Paduk attempts to persuade Krug to promote the state philosophy, but Krug refuses. When Krug's young son David is kidnapped, he capitulates and is prepared to promote Ekwilism in order to have David returned. Alas, there has been a mix-up, and the child returned to Adam Krug is not his son David. David has been accidentally tortured and killed. Krug is also killed, after being driven to madness by the realization that freedom of thought is no longer his once the person he cares for most in the world is killed.
`Individual lives are insecure; but we guarantee the immortality of the State.'
And the title, `Bend Sinister'? Nabokov wrote that: `This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world.'
It's not the story so much that held my attention in this novel as the way Nabokov structured it. The use of chess metaphors: a form of constrained movement and confrontation which sees the story finish in checkmate; the crossing of bridges; and reflections on the qualities of puddles each have a role in the narrative. In this novel, Nabokov has constructed and controls a dystopian society which he also extinguishes once he's finished with it.
`Twang. A good night for mothing.'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is an intelligent, black satire of a state where mediocrity is celebrated and intellectualism denigrated.
Ironically many American reviewers (above) identify the political philosophy of this state as essentially communist. Nabokov repeatedly denied this. In fact he was trying to get at something deeper than simple left or right labels. What happens when confirmity becomes the norm? The obtuse, arrogant, intellectual non-conformist - like Krug - is inexorably drawn into conflict with a society that demands his allegiance. And like Kundera's character in The Joke or Oscar Schindler, or even Socrates the bloody minded become heroic. Not out of an impulse to heroism, just because they refuse to conform.
After the fall of communism it is interesting to reflect whether the US with its relentless celebration of folksiness and denigration of "intellectual elites" more resembles Nabokov's dystopia than we realise.
Doesn't a semi-educated president resemble Paduk? Don't all American children swear an idiotic oath of allegiance to the fatherland in much the same way as was demanded of Krug? Don't officials lock up hundreds without trial in the name of protecting freedom? - apparently unaware that they are busy destroying it. Isn't America the land of overgrown adolescents, ignorant, unreflective, blithe, pleasure seeking and armed? Of course non-conformists are not killed these days. They are emblazoned with the scarlet letter of Anti-American. A modern-day word for heretic. It is interesting to reflect that there is no equivalent word for people who criticise Britain, or France, Sweden, Canada or Spain. Why? Because the nation is not so closely identified with a national philosophy and because criticism is not regarded as threatening. This how evil arises in the world. We stop reflecting why and simply assume that our actions can only be for the good.
Ekwist lives - unfortunately.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
In the first novel he wrote in America, Nabokov explores the troubles intellectuals face under authoritarian regimes. Adam Krug is an "eminent philosopher" living in a fictitional dictatorship ruled by a former schoolmate of his, Paduk, whom he once bullied. Krug has to deal with the death of his wife, the closing of the university, and the arrests of all of his friends, all while trying desperately to shelter his son from the turmoil that surrounds them. Ultimately, this book is about a man trying to retain his sanity in an irrational world. This novel is not an easy read but careful attention is richly rewarded. Like all of Nabokov's writings, it has an abundance of pregnant images and word play. A changing perspective and narrative voice add a surrealistic tone. Nabokov's mastery of English has not yet reached the level it does in such works as Lolita and Pale Fire, but those who love his style will not be dissapointed
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4.3 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A glimpse at the wounded inner child of the beast
In 1984 Orwell gave us a terrifying study of the mind of a totalitarian socialist state. With BEND SINISTER, Vladimir Nabokov confronts a similar beast but instead of dissecting... Read more
Published on Mar 18 2002 by Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nabokov's most political novel, by turns funny and tragic
Bend Sinister (1947) was the first novel Vladimir Nabokov wrote in the United States, and his second novel in English. Read more
Published on Aug 30 2001 by Richard R. Horton
3.0 out of 5 stars
Be patient.
I confess to finding Nabokov a strange writer. In novels such as "Bend Sinister", I find his style frequently irritating, almost as if he's writing the novel purely to... Read more
Published on July 24 2001 by MR G. Rodgers
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stop plucking your nose hairs and read this book
"Bend Sinister" is one of Nabokov's supreme masterpieces and like all great works of art it operates on many levels simultaneously. Read more
Published on Sep 20 2000 by TUCO H.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Krug = Gurk
Come on. NO ONE writes better than Nabokov. There is no better author. Language is a creature he invented, raised, then trained to do tricks.
Published on Oct 17 1999
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful writing undercut by sickening pessimism
I loved reading this book but I hated what I read. This may sound paradoxical. Nabokov's style is the most beautiful and original that I have ever encountered, brimming with... Read more
Published on July 30 1998
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