Laughter in the Dark (Vintage International) and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more



or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading Laughter in the Dark (Vintage International) on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Laughter in the Dark [Paperback]

Vladimir Nabokov , John Banville
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)

List Price: $13.95
Price: $12.25 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $1.70 (12%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Tuesday, May 21? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover --  
Paperback $11.76  
Paperback, September 17, 2006 $12.25  
MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged $18.99  
Unknown Binding --  
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $17.95 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial
Amazon.com Textbooks Store
Shop the Amazon.com Textbooks Store and save up to 70% on textbook rentals, 90% on used textbooks and 60% on eTextbooks.

Book Description

September 17, 2006 0811216748 978-0811216746

The classic novel from the author of Lolita, brilliantly portraying one man's ruin through love and betrayal.

"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark; this, the author tells us, is the whole story—except that he starts from here, with his characteristic dazzling skill and irony, and brilliantly turns a fable into a chilling, original novel of folly and destruction. Amidst a Weimar-era milieu of silent film stars, artists, and aspirants, Nabokov creates a merciless masterpiece as Albinus, an aging critic, falls prey to his own desires, to his teenage mistress, and to Axel Rex, the scheming rival for her affections who finds his greatest joy in the downfall of others.

Published first in Russian as Kamera Obskura in 1932, this book appeared in Nabokov's own English translation six years later. This New Directions edition, based on the text as Nabokov revised it in 1960, features a new introduction by Booker Prize-winner John Banville.

Frequently Bought Together

Laughter in the Dark + Despair + Invitation to a Beheading
Price for all three: $36.48

Buy the selected items together
  • Despair $12.60
  • Invitation to a Beheading $11.63


Editorial Reviews

Review

“Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written—that is, ecstatically.” (John Updike )

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian (translation) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 308 pages
  • Publisher: New Directions (September 17, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0811216748
  • ISBN-13: 978-0811216746
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 0.8 x 5.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Nabokov household was trilingual, and 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 ficticvbn ral books of criticism. Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
(53)
4.5 out of 5 stars
It's a simple story, elegantly told and deftly plotted, simultaneously tragic and comic. alaska  |  18 reviewers made a similar statement
This book activated my love for reading about ten years ago. John Heiman  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read: An Example of a Well Written Novel October 31, 2006
Format:Paperback
This present novel is more concise and less rambling than "Lolita."

I have read some of Nabokov's other books including some of his non-fiction and of course I read "Lolita." This is probably one of his better works.

Nabokov was a devout student of literature as well as a writer. As most know, he became a professor at Cornell in later years. This is an earlier novel from 1932 published in Russian as Kamera Obskura in 1932, then translated by Nabokov to English in 1938, and then again updated by him in 1960.

This is a great novel. It is clear and concise; it is well balanced like his own idea of the perfect novel, "Madame Bovary." In short, it is an entertaining and a compelling read. I read it start to finish in one less than one evening. He has approximately ten characters in the story with about five important characters including the two main protagonists. He keeps the story simple but interesting. The story is brilliantly conceived and told.

I will not give away the plot, but it is set in Berlin after World War I, then it moves on to the Riviera and Switzerland.

As noted on page 1: "Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress.." Knowing that does not ruin the story and that is all you should know for now. Skip all the other comments until you read the novel.

The story unfolds with few clues about what will take place. Most important questions in our minds are left unresolved until the end. Most will sympathise with the slightly naďve Albinus, and as myself, most will become fully immersed in the story.

This is a great novel that I highly recommend.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster."

This is the first paragraph of Laughter in the Dark. Nabokov gives us the synopsis, even the end of the book, right at the beginning. Then starts the simple, yet beautiful narration of a lethal obsession. The sad story of a man who can be very reasonable about every aspect of life unless it has got anything to do with his youthful mistress. When it comes to the 18-year-old femme fatale, he is void of all logic and sense, and cruel to those whom he once loved.

It is impossible to give a summary of the book without giving away its twists and turns, and there are quite a few of them. Here is how one of the main characters react to a divergence in the story:

"A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That's what I like about coincidence."

Nabokov's writing is uncomplicated, sincere and very engrossing. Once started, I couldn't put it down. When I finished the book late last night, I was so shaken that I couldn't go to sleep. I was at once entranced and disturbed by the book. Entranced by Nabokov's ability to sustain the suspense of a story he so shrewdly summarizes at the very beginning. Disturbed by the fact that such obsessions are real and in existence.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
29 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wicked Little Nabakov Gem August 9, 2000
Format:Paperback
This is a nasty little gem of a novel written fairly early in Nabakov's career, when he was still writing in Russian. The copy I just read does not indicate who translated it, although I suspect it may have been his brother, who translated many of his earlier works. It also may have been Nabakov himself. Either way it doesn't matter.

It is the story of a well-to-do German, Albinus, with an inheritance, wife, child and sedate happy life. I am still not clear on what he does; he is apparently some kind of an art critic. He becomes infatuated with the beautiful but deceitful and manipulative Margot, a woman far too young for him. He leaves his wife and child for her, and as time slowly crawls by, loses everything else: his money, his happiness and his health. The young woman is assisted in her deceit by her lover, Rex, who pretends to be the protagonist's friend.

Yes, we've heard this tale before, and will hear it many, many more times, but in the skilled hands of the great Nabakov, all of this is fresh, and very, very original. Rex is an astonishing character; completely, wickedly drawn: "He [Rex] watched with interest the sufferings of Albinus (in his opinion an oaf with simple passions and a solid, too solid, knowledge of painting), who thought, poor man, that he had touched the very depths of human distress; whereas Rex reflected--with a sense of pleasant anticipation--that, far from being the limit, it was merely the first item in the program of a roaring comedy at which he, Rex, had been reserved a place in the stage manager's private box." This little commentary follows shortly after the death of Albinus' only child. Yike! How lusciously, viciously evil! And the extent to which Rex follows his "muse" as the book goes along is almost breathtaking. This is horror, true horror; way beyond the conjurings of such mediocrities as our benighted Sir Stephen.

The girl's character is no less skillfully drawn. Banal, uneducated and dull--yet pretty--she is attracted to only the superficial: fame, pleasure, and money, and tolerates Albinus only for the period of time she is able to use him to get these things. She is as faithful as a cat, and as moral as a snake. But oh, does her black hair glisten in the sunlight, and does her thin body shimmer as it exits the blue Adriatic.

Finally we have Albinus. Not ugly, somewhat stolid, a little naive, his premarital romances had been "feeble." And alongside, "There had been hundreds of girls of whom he had dreamed but whom he had never got to know; they had just slid past him, leaving for a day or two that hopeless sense of loss which makes beauty what it is . . ." We know, soon, that he is the type of person to fall prey to such . . . things.

This is all marvelous, marvelous stuff, and written so early in his career. Amazingly, it doesn't even begin to match his almost unparalleled mastery of the novel form he would later exhibit in novels such as Lolita.

I'm not sure how to say this. If you love to watch tennis, you go to Wimbledon. If you love to drink beer, you go to Bohemia. If you love beautiful women . . . well, there are many places. And now that I am out of metaphors, I will simply say this: if you love literature, you must--you MUST--go to Nabakov.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book
This is a book for our Classic Book Club and we have done many Nabokov Books. It was the best.
Published 2 months ago by Debra Zicko
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliantly wicked piece set in the movie world of Berlin during the...
"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cynthia S. Haggard
5.0 out of 5 stars V. Nabokov- Laughter in the Dark
The book is exquisite.
I like everything about it, and I recommend it heartily to everybody. Having it on the SD card of my Motorola Razr is an achievement, however modest,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Thomas Lewin
5.0 out of 5 stars Middle class malaise
Never has the restless striving of prosperous people been depicted with more elegance, skill and gentle wit. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert S. Bottome
5.0 out of 5 stars Nasty hilarity
This little novel will not restore your faith in humanity but it will make you laugh out loud, and maybe even in the dark.
Published 5 months ago by Christopher
5.0 out of 5 stars Nabokov knows men are stupid self-important pigs
I really really enjoyed reading this. Nabokov has a reputation as a very "literary" writer, but I found this and Lolita to be delightfully accessible (even if I had to skip over... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Adam J. Richards
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book, One of My Favorites by Nabokov
I need to first admit that I'm a big fan of Vladimir Nabokov. I greatly enjoy his style of writing, and there has been only one book thus far that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Brian Hull
5.0 out of 5 stars `Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany a man called...
'He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster. Read more
Published 18 months ago by J. Cameron-Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars One Nasty Fairy Tale
I looked up the original Russian title of "Laughter in the Dark", which is "Kamera Obscura". That's the Latin term for a box-like device which allows light in through a small hole... Read more
Published 21 months ago by benshlomo
4.0 out of 5 stars Nabokov's themes but not his mature touch
Albinus/Albert is a wealthy middle-aged art critic and connoisseur who is bored in his marriage and yearns for the lusty excitement of an affair. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Ethan Cooper
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 





Look for Similar Items by Category