The Nabokov Assignment:
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

Background
One summer day, about five and a half years ago, I purchased a used copy of The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov from the San Francisco State University Bookstore.  The mood was almost funereal as students spent their last remaining pennies on shrink-wrapped texts and stacks of blue books.  Thinking I could find the material elsewhere, I put back an azure bound reader, a required text for a class, and instead snatched the iridescent lepidopteran covered work by one of my favorite writers.  Exactly one semester earlier I had read Pale Fire, and during the summer Lolita; by this point I was enamored.  Having just finished the first installment of Story-a-Day and looking for another anthology or collection of short stories, I stumbled upon this work in my book shelf (okay, a box).  The only other Nabokov book I've read is Pnin.

The Book
Assembled by Nabokov's son, Dmitri Nabokov, this collection contains sixty-five short stories organized in chronological order (date written or, if unknown, date published).  Four of the Nabokovian dozens (equivalent to a baker's dozen, thirteen) were previously released in the following collections: Nabokov's Dozen, A Russian Beauty and Other Stories, Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories, Details of a Sunset and Other Stories.  D. Nabokov decided to add another group of thirteen stories, and made the decision based on notes left by his father (reproduced after the preface).  The remaining stories in Russian were translated by Dmitri.  This edition was released in 1995.  Several passive constructions were used in the writing of this introduction.

The Author
Tidbits/historical & biographical facts will be distributed among the stories, and collected, for convenience sake, here. Novels or other works that I explore will have an asterisk (*) after them.
  On pronunciation
  Sirin explained
  The Russian Revolution of 1917
  Employment
  Mary, 1925*
  Photograph 1
  Photograph 2
  Nabokov & Hitchcock
  The Nabokov-Wilson Letters

The Plan
I will read one story per day (roughly), and then post, in accordance with previous Story-a-Day entries, a brief excerpt and comment.  A "comment" might be anything from a review to a criticism to a response to a work of inspired fiction. After I post the write-up, a link will appear for the story.

The Stories

The Wood Sprite
Russian Spoken Here
Sounds
Wingstroke
Gods
A Matter of Chance
The Seaport
Revenge
Beneficence
Details of a Sunset
The Thunderstorm
La Veneziana
Bachmann

The Dragon
Christmas
A Letter That Never Reached Russia
The Fight
The Return of Chorb
A Guide to Berlin
A Nursery Tale
Terror
Razor
The Passenger
The Doorbell
An Affair of Honor
The Christmas Story

The Potato Elf
The Aurelian
A Dashing Fellow
A Bad Day
The Visit to the Museum
A Busy Man
Terra Incognita  -->[halfway]
The Reunion
Lips to Lips
Orache
Music
Perfection
The Admiralty Spire

The Leonardo
In Memory of L.I. Shigaev
The Circle
A Russian Beauty
Breaking the News
Torpid Smoke
Recruiting
A Slice of Life
Spring in Fialta
Cloud, Castle, Lake
Tyrants Destroyed
Lik
Mademoiselle O

Vasiliy Shishkov
Ultima Thule
Solus Rex
The Assistant Producer
"That in Aleppo Once..."
A Forgotten Poet
Time and Ebb
Conversation Piece, 1945
Signs and Symbols
First Love
Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster
The Vane Sisters
Lance

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