The Eye - Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov (Translator)

Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov (Translator)

Category: General Fiction

Narrator: Fred Stella

Tags: General Fiction, Classic, Adults, Literature

Nabokovs fourth novel, The Eye is as much a farcical detective story as it is a profoundly refractive tale about the vicissitudes of identities and appearances. Nabokovs protagonist, Smurov, is a lovelorn, excruciatingly self-conscious Russian migr living in pre-war Berlin, who takes his own life after being humiliated by a jealous husband, only to suffer even greater indignities in the afterlife. The action of the novel largely begins after the attempted (perhaps successful) suicide of the protagonist. This occurs after he suffers a beating at the hands of a cuckolded husband. After his supposed death, and assuming everything in the world around him to be a manifestation of his leftover imagination, his eye observes a group of Russian migrs as he tries to ascertain their opinions of the character Smurov, around whom much uncertainty and suspicion exists.