Nabokov: His Life in Part

Andrew Field's biography Nabokov: His Life in Part examines Vladimir Nabokov's life and work through extensive research and personal interviews with the author himself. Field traces Nabokov's journey from his privileged childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia through his years of exile in Europe and eventual immigration to America. The book provides insights into Nabokov's creative process and documents the development of his major works, including Lolita and Pale Fire. Field's access to Nabokov's personal correspondence and manuscripts reveals connections between the author's experiences and his fiction. The biography explores Nabokov's relationships with his wife Véra, his son Dmitri, and the literary circles he inhabited across three continents. Field's research encompasses Nabokov's parallel careers as novelist, lepidopterist, and professor. The work presents Nabokov as a figure whose displacement and loss shaped his artistic vision, while highlighting the interplay between memory, imagination, and truth in both his life and literature.

Readers note Field's firsthand access to Nabokov makes this biography unique, as Field spent time with the author and had access to personal documents and correspondence. Many reviewers highlight Field's attention to detail about Nabokov's early life in Russia and his years teaching in America. Likes: - Depth of research and archival material - Coverage of Nabokov's Russian period - Personal anecdotes from Field's interactions with Nabokov Dislikes: - Writing style can be dense and academic - Some sections feel disorganized - Too much focus on literary analysis versus biographical details - Field's occasional self-insertion into the narrative Ratings: Goodreads: 4.0/5 (52 ratings) Amazon: 4.2/5 (8 ratings) One reviewer on Goodreads wrote: "Field gives us the clearest picture of Nabokov's Russian years." Another noted: "The author sometimes gets lost in academic digressions that detract from the biography's flow."

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🦋 While writing the biography, Andrew Field had unprecedented access to Vladimir Nabokov himself, conducting over 100 hours of interviews with the author at his home in Montreux, Switzerland. 📚 The book caused significant controversy upon its 1977 release, with Nabokov's wife Véra calling it "malicious" and "libelous," leading to legal disputes between Field and the Nabokov estate. 🎨 Field's work was the first major biography of Nabokov to be published during the author's lifetime, though Nabokov withdrew his support before publication. ✍️ The biography reveals that Nabokov wrote much of his masterpiece "Lolita" on index cards while traveling across America on butterfly-collecting trips. 🗝️ The title "His Life in Part" refers to both the fragmentary nature of biographical writing and Nabokov's own belief that no biography could capture more than a partial truth of a person's life.