Customer Reviews

The Eye

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

... for more Nabokov! If only he'd been as prolific as Anthony Trollope. This short novella, written in Berlin in 1930, is not nearly the apex of Nab's oeuvre, but it's awfully good. Even when no one could mistake his lepidopterine syntax, it's fun to see him writing in a new genre with every book. The Eye is a tale in the 'doppelgänger' tradition of Poe's William Wilson, Hawthorne's Wakefield, and Melville's The Confidence Man, though there's no reason to assume that Nabokov was aware of his American forerunners. Since the whole novella is built around the reader's dawning suspicions, I can't say much more about the plot without spoiling your pleasure.

The Marxist Revolution makes a cameo appearance in The Eye - its Russian title was closer to 'The Spy' - as in nearly all of Nab's books. In a brief dismissal of historical determinism, he writes: "Luckily no such laws exist: a toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection. Everything is fluid, everything depends on chance, and all in vain were the efforts of that crabbed bougeois in Victorian checkered trousers, author of Das Kapital, fruit of insomnia and migraine. There is a titillating pleasure in looking back at the past and asking oneself 'What would have happened if...' and substituting one chance occurrence for another, observing how, from a gray, barren, humdrum moment in one's life, there grows forth a marvelous rosy event that in reality had failed to flower. A mysterious thing, this branching structure of life..." That, my friends, is not only an eloquent dismissal of Marxism but also a fine statement of evolutionary contingency.

Just one more passage from Nab's own words, intended to entice your reading:
"And yet I am happy. Yes, happy. I swear, I swear I am happy. I have realized that the only happiness in this world is to observe, to spy, to watch, to scrutinize one self and others, to be nothing but a big, slightly vitreous, somewhat bloodshot, unblinking eye. I swear that this is happiness."
Okay, I'll accept that, as long as this eye has another Nabokov novel to read.

The Eye is often overlooked because it is so short (around 100 pages in most editions) and because it turns on a gimmick: the narrator kills himself near the start of the story and then finds that his thoughts live on "by momentum." But it is Nabokov's special gift to make his tricks more than just tricks, and The Eye is the first of his books to do this on a grand scale. In some ways this is among the most moving of Nabokov's works, as well as one of the most entertaining.

In later works, Nabokov mused on the nature of identity with sharper, more amusing, and more penetrating results. But this book, by my count, was his first lengthy foray into the subject. In Smurov, he created a character whose self-image is an attempt at an amalgamation of the Smurov's everyone who knows him sees. A fun meditation on the importance of the opinions of others and a compelling death story. Much more, of course. And, of course, beautiful, beautiful.

Nabakov, as he so inventively does, dances and plays with the true matter of the story, our hero's madness. With intricate prose, speckled with fervent descriptions of a self-obsessed white russian emigre' he engulfs the reader in the hero's delicate world of self deceit, confusion and self-doubt. Once again, a genius of the 20th century.

Let's face it, Vladimir Nabokov didn't really care about realism in his stories. That's probably why he's been so much misunderstood in the past. Readers tend to assume that he's like most novelists, and he's not.

Most novelists write stories intended to be taken at face value - we read their tales and say to ourselves, "Even if this story couldn't possibly happen in real life, it could in the narrator's world, and the narrator believes it." Well, I'd like to see anyone make that assumption about "The Eye". In it, a man tells the story of his humiliation and subsequent suicide; at the end, we can't be entirely sure whether the man is dead or alive. With all due respect, if you consider that realism, you should take two aspirin, drink plenty of liquids, and call me in the morning.

At the very least, the narrator believes that he is dead. He insists that all the events he experiences after he shoots himself are mere figments of his disembodied imagination. Nevertheless, he continues to go about his daily routine. As an émigré from the Russian Revolution living in Berlin (a group that Nabokov returned to many times), he naturally rents a room from a couple of other émigrés and takes to hanging out with them and the other boarders. He becomes fascinated with one of them, a man named Smurov, and tries to learn all he can about this person. Thus, as is the case with a lot of Nabokov's work, "The Eye" comes to resemble a sort of detective story, except that Smurov hasn't committed any crime other than lying about his past from time to time, so there's really nothing to detect. The narrator eventually concludes that, in many ways, Smurov and everyone else exist only in the opinions of others. They themselves have no reality outside of their reflections in other people's consciousnesses. Now, what do you suppose that means about the narrator himself?

The boarding house serves a few other people, of course. Two sisters run it, one married and one single. The single sister, nicknamed Vanya, attracts a lot of attention from the male boarders, and our narrator seems remarkably concerned as to whether or not she loves Smurov. It's partly his anxiousness over her feelings that leads the narrator to find out what the other boarders think of him, and this investigation that leads him to conclude that neither Smurov nor anyone else has any independent existence.

He draws a number of additional conclusions. One of the boarders keeps a daily diary and mails each day's entry to a friend in another town, for the friend's amusement and to keep himself from changing anything. His impressions will remain as fresh as the day he wrote them down. Our narrator finds this fascinating, and reflects on the possibility that one's existence may have a more permanent nature years after one's death than during one's lifetime. It makes a certain kind of sense, after all. During life, others may change their minds about you; after death, those opinions will remain the same, especially if they're written down. If you exist only in other's view of you, then your existence is more settled after that view stops changing, right?

He observes a local bookseller whose hobbies include consulting the spirits on a sort of Ouija board, and asserting that hidden spies for the new Soviet regime have infiltrated every aspect of his life. Both of these avocations go back on this man. His primary contact through the Ouija board is the spirit of a practical joker who loves to pretend to be some great historical figure and then causing the board to spell out some variant of "Gotcha!", and he misses the one genuine Soviet spy in the neighborhood.

Pretty intense, especially when compressed into Nabokov's shortest novel; it's barely 100 pages long. That's plenty of space for the narrator to gather views of Smurov from pretty nearly everyone in the building. This being Nabokov, however, you will not be surprised to learn that the information does not provide the narrator with a very clear idea of who Smurov is, and it's of dubious help to Smurov's love life. Without giving too much away, though, all this observation convinces the narrator that true happiness consists of refraining from action, restricting yourself to observation. One should, in other words, turn oneself into an eye.

For a scientist like Nabokov, this notion isn't as surprising as it might be, but we must bear in mind that Nabokov the writer loved tricks and puzzles. The narrator of "The Eye" has a few secrets that the reader eventually uncovers, which may explain why the narration gets a little hysterical at the end - so hysterical, in fact, that you'll have to decide for yourself how seriously to take the closing idea. One way or the other, though, with the observation and detective work, the puzzles and solutions, "The Eye" is a lot of fun.

And you thought great writers were a bunch of terribly serious chaps. Ha.

Benshlomo says, Great literature is a great game.

This is Nabokov's shortest novel, and I think one of the most exquisitely structured books ever. Each word and sentence is carefully crafted, polished and placed into position to create a superb portrait of fractured, then reunited identity. A miniature masterpiece.

This frequently overlooked novel is about a Russian expatriate who walks the awfully familiar streets of the afterlife trying to scrape together some sort of closure. He falls in love, in his own way, and learns some things about himself, though not as much as we do. Instead of the ecstatic and flowery prose of, say, _Lolita,_ this is a cerebral sleight-of-hand, more Christopher Priest than Borges. Nabokov very credibly lays the groundwork for, and then draws out, extreme fits of passion (both hot and cold) from his repressed, inarticulate protagonist-- if you're a guy, you may well find this deeply affecting. I can see fans of Paul Auster enjoying this, in addition to the whole Russian lit crowd.

Years ago, I was given Pale Fire by a friend, and for almost three months I read and re-read that wonderful creation and developed an admiration for Nabokov which has remained to this day. I am presently reading his early Russian works, and while they might not be on par with his later writings, they are definitely worth reading. He is a master of both the Russian (I assume this from the superb translation) and English languages and to read him is one of life's great pleasures.

The Eye, written in 1930, is concerned with the nature of identity and how the overly self-conscious individual is defined only by how he perceives himself seen by those around him. Although an interesting, gorgeously written book, and hinting at greater books to come, The Eye is the work of a young artist who has only partially honed his craft.

THough hardly his best novel, The Eye is an essential read for any amateur Nabokovian. Originally titled in Russian "The Spy", The Eye is the story of a young man hell bent on destroying his own life, the only p roblem is, that may have already happened. With elements of Gogol's "Lost Souls" and the beginnings of Nabokov's characteristic style, "The Eye" is an intriguing two or three hour read. I finished it in an afternoon, but that was two years ago, and I'm still pondering this novel. For the key to the mystery, see Stacy Schiff's "Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)", also an intriguing read.

Closer to four-and-a-half stars. Spectacular; for a novel that tips in at just over one-hundred pages, "The Eye" is a marvel of imagery and literary sleight-of-hand. Nabokov, one of the most deviously ingenious writers of the 20th century, offers this short, but striking insight into the protean nature of human identity. Through the character of Smurov--a suicide victim whose thoughts go on even after his death--Nabokov explores the psyche of Everyman, the manifold ways in which we perceive ourselves, and are perceived by others. Standing outside his body, the detached first-person narrator observes himself (Smurov) in his daily interactions with others and longs to learn more about himself by learning how others see him. But even beyond its philosophical/existential implications, "The Eye" is simply great fun to read. Nabokov's writing, even in translation, is beautiful and his deft manipulation of character is unparalleled. It is unlikely that you will find another novel that delivers as much bang for the literary buck.