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capyrinhabook's review against another edition
4.0
I love Nabokov very much, but I didn't like this work much. The language and storytelling style are beautiful in this book, but the plot is not
crowlsyung's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
millese2's review
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
buddhafish's review
4.0
59th book of 2021. Artist for this review is English painter William Ratcliffe.
4.5. As I continue to potter around in Nabokov's Russian émigré novels (attempting them in some semblance of order, when I manage to get hold of them), I come to Glory, a seemingly forgotten and unread novel from 1932, though not translated into English until far later: 1971. It's Nabokov's fifth novel and he is certainly coming into his true form at this point. The novel is mostly plotless and is constructed by vignettes. Nabokov wrote his novels on index cards, never in order, and created the novel from the sum of all the fragments he had written over so many cards, and this novel felt like the closest to the purest form of his process.
It felt like Nabokov's version of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at times (Joyce, after all, being one of the few writers Nabokov spoke highly of), at other times almost a little like Woolf's Jacob's Room. It is partly a campus novel, at Cambridge university, where our Russian émigré Martin attends, but also a great romp about Europe: Germany, Riga, Switzerland, France, etc. Prior to getting this, I didn't know Nabokov had ever written about England so it was a pleasant surprise. It turns out he attended Trinity College and this novel and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (which I haven't got to yet) draws on that experience. In short, it is a beautifully-written, charming, mostly sentimental (surprising for Nabokov) bildungsroman. It just misses out on being a 5-star read. The campus-novel elements, the time at university, where all worthy of five-stars for me, but the rest just a little below that. So far though, this has been my favourite of Nabokov's early Russian émigré novels. I read, just today, that this is, in fact, Nicholson Baker's favourite Nabokov novel, of the Russian-written ones.
"Clarence Gardens"—1912
Its vignette-like construction is what reminded me of Woolf's Jacob's Room, though Martin Edelweiss is not drawn as a character by those around him as Jacob is. He spends a lot of his childhood travelling before his Anglophile mother finally sends him to Cambridge. The characters he meets there, Darwin, Vadim, Teddy, were all wonderful. Particularly the former. The camaraderie between the students was a pure joy to read, as it is in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and reminds me of my own days in education. London is drawn well by Nabokov, a sort of sleepy, sometimes rainy, hazy, at times, place. He is enamoured by the unattainable Sonia, and his attempts to impress her take the story in a weird direction towards the end. Nevertheless, it is a short (only 200 or so pages) but dense read; throughout the pages a great deal happens, borderlines are hopped in one line, back in the other.
Martin is a character not too dissimilar from Stephen Dedalus, I suppose. Other than the fact the former is a Russian émigré. He finds he doesn't really know what he wants to do/be. At one point,
Likewise, I seem to remember Stephen Dedalus' family calling him lazy. The sort of young tall thin men that Borges once said were always accosting him and asking about his work seem to be the type of men written about in these bildungsroman novels—pensive, quiet fellows. Nabokov says in the foreword: "Martin is the kindest, uprightest, and most touching of all my young men..."
If for no other reason, it deserves to be read for his prose. Looking at a train window at night,
Who could write that besides Nabokov? I'll end with something more from the foreword:
4.5. As I continue to potter around in Nabokov's Russian émigré novels (attempting them in some semblance of order, when I manage to get hold of them), I come to Glory, a seemingly forgotten and unread novel from 1932, though not translated into English until far later: 1971. It's Nabokov's fifth novel and he is certainly coming into his true form at this point. The novel is mostly plotless and is constructed by vignettes. Nabokov wrote his novels on index cards, never in order, and created the novel from the sum of all the fragments he had written over so many cards, and this novel felt like the closest to the purest form of his process.
It felt like Nabokov's version of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at times (Joyce, after all, being one of the few writers Nabokov spoke highly of), at other times almost a little like Woolf's Jacob's Room. It is partly a campus novel, at Cambridge university, where our Russian émigré Martin attends, but also a great romp about Europe: Germany, Riga, Switzerland, France, etc. Prior to getting this, I didn't know Nabokov had ever written about England so it was a pleasant surprise. It turns out he attended Trinity College and this novel and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (which I haven't got to yet) draws on that experience. In short, it is a beautifully-written, charming, mostly sentimental (surprising for Nabokov) bildungsroman. It just misses out on being a 5-star read. The campus-novel elements, the time at university, where all worthy of five-stars for me, but the rest just a little below that. So far though, this has been my favourite of Nabokov's early Russian émigré novels. I read, just today, that this is, in fact, Nicholson Baker's favourite Nabokov novel, of the Russian-written ones.
"Clarence Gardens"—1912
Its vignette-like construction is what reminded me of Woolf's Jacob's Room, though Martin Edelweiss is not drawn as a character by those around him as Jacob is. He spends a lot of his childhood travelling before his Anglophile mother finally sends him to Cambridge. The characters he meets there, Darwin, Vadim, Teddy, were all wonderful. Particularly the former. The camaraderie between the students was a pure joy to read, as it is in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and reminds me of my own days in education. London is drawn well by Nabokov, a sort of sleepy, sometimes rainy, hazy, at times, place. He is enamoured by the unattainable Sonia, and his attempts to impress her take the story in a weird direction towards the end. Nevertheless, it is a short (only 200 or so pages) but dense read; throughout the pages a great deal happens, borderlines are hopped in one line, back in the other.
Martin is a character not too dissimilar from Stephen Dedalus, I suppose. Other than the fact the former is a Russian émigré. He finds he doesn't really know what he wants to do/be. At one point,
'Here, this young man, for example,' Uncle Henry would say, indicating Martin with his walking stick, 'he has finished college, one of the most expensive colleges in the world, and you ask him what he has learned, what he is prepared for. I absolutely don't know what he is going to do next. In my time young men became doctors, soldiers, notaries, while he is probably dreaming of being an aviator or a gigolo.'
Likewise, I seem to remember Stephen Dedalus' family calling him lazy. The sort of young tall thin men that Borges once said were always accosting him and asking about his work seem to be the type of men written about in these bildungsroman novels—pensive, quiet fellows. Nabokov says in the foreword: "Martin is the kindest, uprightest, and most touching of all my young men..."
If for no other reason, it deserves to be read for his prose. Looking at a train window at night,
Martin saw through the window what he had seen as a child—a necklace of lights, far away, among the dark hills. Someone seemed to pour them from one hand into the other, and pocket them.
Who could write that besides Nabokov? I'll end with something more from the foreword:
"The book's—certainly very attractive—working title (later discarded in favor of the pithier Podvig [Glory], 'gallant fear,' 'high deed') was because I had had enough of hearing Western journalists call our era 'materialistic,' 'practical,' 'utilitarian,' etc., but mainly because the purpose of my novel, my only one with a purpose, lay in stressing the thrill and the glamour that my young expatriate finds in the most ordinary pleasures as well as in the seemingly meaningless adventures of a lonely life."
johhnnyinla's review
2.0
Glory is a tale of adventure and "coming of age" during pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. We follow the life and development of Martin Edelweiss, a Swiss-Russian, from childhood to university graduate of Cambridge in England. As the years pass, Martin finds himself in situations, with increasing loftiness and grandiosity, where he feels the need to conquer in order to achieve, in his eyes, a sort of heroic status. Much akin to the “perfect throw” in football—whatever that is.
The crux of the problem is the impotence of the main character; that being, the drive and ambitions without the means and wherewithal to accomplish. Atop those dispositions, there is nothing of notable account about Martin. I found difficulty in growing attached to the protagonist.
With leitmotifs of “light and dark”, “winding paths that disappear into the forest”, “the sound of water”, and the various modes of “journey”, a fairy-tale like quality to the novel is stylistically painted and lends to the enchantment of the story.
However, I found the development of the story sleepy and the stark conclusion dissatisfying. There are some nice turns of phrase and trademark drollery, but an uninspired protagonist and subtle multiplicity of meaning absent made a rather weak story. Overall I found nothing compelling about the novel.
http://shortbookreview.blogspot.com/2012/07/glory-podvig-by-vladimir-nabokov-1931.html