Review: Mary
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThis is Nabokov's first novel (Mashenka), more properly novella, which is best read for its germinal indications of the later works to follow: particularly the theme of the emigre in transition which will be so triumphantly realized in another habitat, Pnin; and the retrospective refrains of Speak, Memory. Briefly here in Berlin, in the gracelessly German, heavy, dusty pension of Frau Dorn, a number of exiles have rooms: a brace of ballet-dancer homosexuals; an aging, failing poet; one Alfyorov who within a few days will be joined by the pretty wife he married before he emigrated. And Ganin, who recognizes from a snapshot that Mary was his first romance. This occasions the ""eternal return"" through memory to a time when tender was the night and gentle the tryst (the inset here with its mellifluous lyricism contrasts with the glumly enclosed existence in the pension). Ganin thinks of going to meet Mary and spiriting her away--of course he doesn't. . . . The story is a slight thing at best--a frail straw in the wind.
Review: Mary
User Review - Katy - GoodreadsDon't know what the point of this was. It took me a few hours to read and I'm still not really too sure what happened. I like the style of writing, but nothing in its pages gripped me or compelled me ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - John Beck - Goodreadshttp://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/11/book-review-mary-by-vladimir-nabokov.... Vladimir Nabokov's Mary is the story of a man with the opportunity to be reunited with an old flame. Nostalgia is a ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Dale R. Wilsey Jr. - GoodreadsMemories and shadows. Images of the past that roll through the mind like smoke escaping the bellies of locomotives. A photo. A certain scent. Mary. Mary is coming. Nabokov's first novel has cemented ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Sarah Brody - GoodreadsLive the pure simplicity and shortness of the book. Very authentic. When I lived at the shores of Lake Geneva and attended Art Center (Europe) I was given Nabokov as a subject to read and write about ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Peter - GoodreadsFor a book in which largely nothing happens, Nabokov has a lot to say. In fact, the novella has so little in terms of notable actionable events, that it could be adumbrated in less than a couple of ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Janice - GoodreadsI'm reviewing this under less than ideal circumstances, as I read this over three months ago back in August -- at the Washington Dulles airport no less, waiting for a flight back home after a ten hour ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Frank - GoodreadsThis little book is a different side of Nabokov from what I've seen before, limited that may be. The only other things I've read, Lolita and Pnin ,were both set in the States, and more specifically ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - Dan Keating - GoodreadsI just read Vladimir Nabokov's "Mary" in a single day. Two things can be extracted from that fact - one, that "Mary" is a book that can be read in a single day, and two, that Mary is enjoyable and ... Read full review
Review: Mary
User Review - GoodreadsVladimir Nabokov hadn't reached the same literary maturity as when he wrote Lolita or Ada or Ador but, for a first novel, Mary still represents a gloriously composed tale that captivates you at every ...
