Which are Nabokov’s best books? And which should you consider reading? Any ranking is subjective but the reasons behind a “best of” rank can help you decide. So here is my personal list of the eight “best” Nabokov books, which include six novels, one memoir, and one collection of interviews. Also see the Nabokov resources below these reviews.
Lolita (1955)
Lolita is Nabokov’s best novel because it is the book that best synthesizes all his major characteristics as a writer:
(1) A love of language
(2) Delight in word play, patterns, puzzles, and games
(3) A highly intelligent, narcissistic-sociopath narrator
(4) A resilient victim who is the center of Nabokov’s sympathy
(5) A preoccupation with perception, consciousness, time, and memory
(6) A belief in fate and the existence of a great design behind what seem to be the random and irrelevant facts of ordinary life
(7) The conviction that art is a refuge from the assault of death
In addition, Lolita is the disturbing story of a successful child rapist. It features brilliant miniature portraits of postwar America – almost Vermeer-like in their lucidity – as well as a phantasmagorical climax that takes place in a fairytale nightmare land. Lolita is funny, harrowing, heartbreaking, and transcendent. It caused a scandal, was a critical and then a popular success, and made Nabokov a mint of money. As art and cultural phenomenon, Lolita excels. The Lolita article on Wikipedia is pretty good.
Speak, Memory (1966)
Not a novel, but a memoir of Nabokov’s life from childhood to the moment he escapes France weeks before the 1940 German invasion – Speak, Memory is a classic of autobiography that leaves most of Nabokov’s story untold.
Instead, it focuses on Nabokov’s most cherished memories of his family and friends; his youth in Russia and his young adulthood in Western European exile; on the natural world and butterfly hunting; on a recital of the Nabokov family’s august history and their liberal politics; on stories of Vladimir’s education and tutors and governesses, including the famous “Mademoiselle O”; on poetry; and more.
Through it all permeates the great Nabokovian pre-occupation and conviction that there is more than darkness before the beginning and after the end of life; that our living persists and this persistence is wonderful; and that the people we love won’t disappear into nothingness after death. You find this theme frequently in Nabokov, but its purest distillation is here in this great book.
Pnin (1957)
Professor Timofey Pnin is Nabokov’s most deeply comic and deeply human character, and his response to the incessant comic cruelty Cervantes inflicts on Don Quixote. The structure of the novel is slight and episodic (Pnin began life as serial pieces published in The New Yorker) and lacks the dazzling pyrotechnics of books like Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada. What Pnin offers instead is hilarity, enormous tenderness for the agonies of an ordinary life, and the danger of laughing at rather than laughing with Timofey; which is complicated by the fact that the arrogant narrator of this novel is not a Humbert Humbert or a Charles Kinbote, but Vladimir Nabokov himself.
Pale Fire (1962)
In terms of structure, technique, and pure virtuosity – and as a landmark of post-modern fiction – Pale Fire is Nabokov’s masterpiece. But it is a cold masterpiece.
The novel is constructed from a 999-line poem in rhyming couplets composed by one of the book’s characters (the Robert-Frost-like John Shade), with a forward, commentary, and index written by another (the extravagantly delusional Charles Kinbote).
The major conceit of Pale Fire is that Kinbote’s commentary has nothing to do with Shade’s poem, which creates a WTF experience for the unwarned first-time reader rivaled in English-language novels of the 20th century only by the “Benny” section of Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury.
Nabokov’s prose in Pale Fire is brilliant; there is no better example of “the novel as chess problem” in his work; and Charles Kinbote is the craziest if not the most dangerous of Nabokov’s narrators (although it is difficult to tell what is “real” and what is imagination in his novels).
However, the human tenderness in Pale Fire – frequently buried in Nabokov’s major works – is particularly difficult to find here. It exists in Shade’s poem, which tells the story of his unhappy daughter’s suicide, and the long grief of Shade and his wife over their loss. But this is overwhelmed by Kinbote’s monumental self-absorption and the intricate innovation of Nabokov’s design. Nabokov’s supreme novel for the mind. The Pale Fire article on Wikipedia is pretty good.
The Gift (1937)
The last and best of the novels Nabokov wrote in Russian, The Gift is a portrait of a young Russian writer, Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev, finding his way as an artist and falling in love with the woman who would become his wife.
Nabokov transforms this commonplace premise into a novel which is dense with detail, filled with examples of Godunov-Cherdyntsev’s writing, and convinced that fate is working secretly to assure the young writer’s happiness.
Nabokov’s powers of observation and description come to the forefront in The Gift, particularly since the novel, like many lives, is short on plot. This will please fans of modernism but there are metafictional touches as well.
The novel features a 90-page chapter entirely devoted to a book by Fyodor called The Life of Chernyshevski as well as a generous sample of hostile reviews of it. Most especially, at the end, you see Fyodor coming up with the idea to write a book that will become The Gift itself.
Ada (1969)
Ada is Nabokov’s Finnegan’s Wake. Meaning that you can see Ada as either the summation of Nabokov’s artistic vision which pushes to their limits his genius as an author, the form of the novel, and the abilities of the audience. Or you can see Ada as a deeply self-indulgent, over-intricate and deliberately obscure, reader-hostile mess.
I’m inclined to the former view, although I think Ada is a good example of the axiom that more is not always better, and even Nabokov fans will need to endure a fair amount of confusion, re-read the novel several times, or rely on expert help (such as Brian Boyd’s Nabokov’s Ada or the chapters in his biography of Vladimir).
Ada is occupied with the 80+ year love affair between Van and Ada Veen who are, as it turns out, brother and sister and which takes place on a parallel / alternative Earth sometimes called Anti Terra and sometimes Demonia. All seven of the Nabokov qualities are in evidence, plus a fair amount of literary parody as well as a few science fiction touches and other assorted material that will keep readers so inclined to puzzle out Ada happily at work. Matthew Hodgart’s 1969 review of “Ada” gets it right and is a hoot to read too.
Bend Sinister (1947)
Nabokov always insisted he was indifferent to politics, but Bend Sinister suggests he wasn’t indifferent to the cruelty governments inflict on individuals.
The novel takes place in the nightmare city of Padukgrad, run by the dictator Paduk and his “Party of the Average Man”. Paduk wants Adam Krug, a renowned philosopher, to give a speech in support of his government. When Krug refuses, Paduk threatens his son, and the bungling brutality of Paduk’s thugs leads to tragedy.
In Bend Sinister, Nabokov focuses on Adam Krug’s love for his son and his cheerful contempt for the dictator Paduk, a childhood acquaintance. Although the novel takes place in a fictitious country, and feels like other Nabokovian worlds, Bend Sinister is an accurate portrait of the dynamics of the total state. What is fantasy, and what gives the novel its final punch, is when Nabokov reaches into the novel and mercifully saves a character from the suffering that state inflicts. (For a longer discussion of Nabokov and totalitarianism, see my post Tyrants Destroyed: Politics in the Novels of Vladimir Nabokov.)
Strong Opinions (1973)
Readers of this collection of interviews, edited to the last comma by Nabokov himself, could be forgiven for concluding Vladimir was even more arrogant and imperious than his reputation.
Nabokov does spank the hell out of just about everyone in Strong Opinions: Freud; a long list of “second rate” writers including Balzac, Dostoevski, Lawrence, Camus, Sartre, and Faulkner; consumers of “poshlost” or cheap, vulgar sometimes popular and sometimes exalted culture; Westerners duped by Soviet propaganda; members of any literary, social, or political group; fans of “general ideas” and “everyday reality” and “social interest” and “moral messages” in novels; Edmund Wilson and his grasp of Russian. The spanking goes on.
Nabokov does condemn cruelty and brutality in all its forms. He expresses a great sunny and personal happiness. And he provides useful facts, such as the pronunciation of his last name (see my note below). As complete a portrait of the public Nabokov as Speak Memory is a portrait of the private.
Additional Resources on Vladimir Nabokov
Bibliography: Nabokov wrote novels, poems, short stories, plays, and works of literary criticism in English and Russian. You can find a comprehensive bibliography of Nabokov’s work on Wikipedia.
Short Biography: Encyclopaedia Britannica online has a good brief biography of Nabokov’s life.
Long Biography: I recommend Brian Boyd’s Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Boyd does an excellent job of telling the story of Nabokov’s life and assessing the literary qualities of his major works. Boyd is well regarded as a Nabokov scholar and published his own ranking of Nabokov’s books in Publishers Weekly.
Wife and Son: Nabokov’s wife Véra was his inspiration, first reader, business manager, and much more. All his novels were dedicated to her. Nabokov’s and Véra’s only child, Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov, helped translate many of his father’s books and oversaw his literary estate after his mother died in 1991. Dmitri had a career as a professional opera singer. For a few years in the 1960s, he raced cars professionally as well.
Lepidopterology: Nabokov was also famous for both his love of butterflies and his scientific study of them. Since Nabokov was a self-taught zoologist, most of the scientific community considered him a dilettante. As it turns out, one of Nabokov’s biggest theories about butterflies was correct.
Russian Author or American Author: This question is a perennial source of disagreement. Those who wish to go spelunking in Plato’s cave and come up with elaborate theories, aesthetic or otherwise, about the essence of the words “Russian” and “American” are free to do so. And doubtless you will too. For my part, I think the right way to answer the question is to ask Nabokov. And his answer goes like this. Nabokov is an American author because Nabokov chose to become an American citizen.
Nabokov was born in Russia, fled the revolution in 1917, and never returned. He went to university in England but did not become an English citizen. He lived in Germany but fled to France when Hitler rose to power. (Véra was a Jewish.) He fled France ahead of the German invasion in 1940. Nabokov lived in America for twenty years and became a citizen. In the early 1960s, he and Véra moved to Switzerland to be near Dmitri. Yet Nabokov always maintained his US citizenship, paying a great deal of American taxes for the privilege as he liked to point out. The Paris Review asked Nabokov in 1967 “Do you consider yourself an American?” This is how he answered:
Yes, I do. I am as American as April in Arizona…. I feel a suffusion of warm, lighthearted pride when I show my green USA passport at European frontiers. Crude criticism of American affairs offends and distresses me. In home politics, I am strongly anti-segregationist. In foreign affairs, I am definitely on the government’s side. And when in doubt, I always follow the simple method of choosing that line of conduct which may be the most displeasing to the Reds and the Russells.
I might also say there is something quintessentially American about Pnin and Lolita and Ada and Van Veen, but saying that I realize I’ve fallen back into Plato’s cave.
Those inclined toward reasoned compromise might gently suggest Nabokov is a “Russian-American” author but neither reason nor compromise exists these days so y’all gonna have to pick a tribe.
Pronunciation of Name: How to pronounce Nabokov’s name is another source of perennial disagreement. This is what Nabokov himself said in a 1965 interview with TV-13 in New York and even he doesn’t firmly answer the question:
As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle, as Russians also do. Na-bo-kov. A heavy open “o” as in “Knickerbocker”. My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle “o” of Nabokov as delivered in American academies. The awful “Na-bah-kov” is a despicable gutterism. Well, you can make your choice now. Incidentally, the first name is pronounced Vladeemer — rhyming with “redeemer.”
Movies: The most famous Nabokov movies are the two Lolita films: the 1962 version directed by Stanley Kubrick (Nabokov wrote the screenplay) and the 1997 version directed by Adrian Lyne. Lyne’s film is not a success aside from the opening credit sequence, featuring music by Ennio Morricone, which achieves a beauty and heartbreak the rest of the film conspicuously lacks.
Neither Kubrick nor Lyne deal with the key fact Humbert Humbert is a serial rapist who monstrously abuses Lolita. (The beauty of the story is all on Humbert’s side. The real heartbreak belongs to Lolita alone even if you believe Humbert’s remorse over his treatment of Lolita is genuine.)
You could argue that Nabokov also fails to deal with Humbert as a serial rapist and monstrous abuser and to the extent that Lolita’s experience is all but obliterated from the novel, you are right. I can only say that the novel emphasizes those qualities which made it possible for Humbert to succeed as a rapist. His good looks and good manners and good education. His charm and most of all his dazzling narcissism and his titanic self-absorption. That Humbert abused Lolita because he failed to see her, and failed to see her because he could only see himself, is precisely the point in my reading.
Now, Nabokov himself is having none of this and Lionel Trilling is having much worse. At least in the filmed interview below.
Interview Videos: Here are the two parts of an interview with Nabokov about Lolita.
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Peter Galen Massey 
I have to confess my ignorance of these books. I had, of course, heard of Lolita, but not the rest. I have saved your reviews, and am going to get these, one by one, out of the library to make some comparisons.
My guess is you’ll like Pnin and Speak Memory best. But we’ll see!
I ADORED Bend Sinister. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Admittedly it’s less polished than Lolita or Pnin (my other favorites), but I still thought that it was absolutely brilliant. I’m glad you included it, because I feel like it’s severely underrated.
I usually pair Bend Sinister in my mind with Invitation to a Beheading, and suspect … without real proof … that VN didn’t talk them up because they both can be read as political comment, which he always says he dislikes in novels, and because they have a wiff of Kafka, and VN always makes a point of saying he wasn’t influenced by any of his contemporaries. (I think the timing of Kafka’s translation into a language VN could read might post date these novels, however.)
The closest I have come to Nabokov is through “Reading Lolita in Teheran’ by Azar Nafisi. Probably would have been an easier book to read if I had read Lolita!
I always hesitate to recommend Nabokov too strongly and hope my “best Nabokov” list helps you decide if you want to give him a go. Lolita is a fantastic book, but a lot of folks have trouble getting over the child rape part — and I don’t blame them. (Amazingly, I’ve run into academic types who dismiss those concerns or say Lolita consented.) You also have to deal with the tone of arrogant misanthropy in his narrators, and the question of whether this reflects Nabokov’s personality as well, and how you feel about hanging out with a Humbert Humbert or a Kinbote all together. Then, books like Ada and Pale Fire and The Gift can really make you work, and that’s not always what everyone wants.
Well I thought your best Nabokov list was excellent and helpful but whether I am ready to read any Nabokov is another matter.
It’s impressive that you have managed to read and review 8 books of Nabokob. I have read 4 so far: Lolita (that i absolutely adore), Invitation to a Beheading (very interesting and written in Kafka’s style of writing- dreamlike reality), The Gift (which i didnt liket too much) and The Original Laura (that is an incomplete manuscript but printed in Nabokov’s writing and hence a good collectible! Should perhaps pick up Pnin nect?
Well, the secret is that I’ve been reading Nabokov’s books since the mid 1980s, many of them several times … plus a couple bios, some criticism, and assorted odds and ends. He’s probably the only author I have enough background with to write a “best of” column. Maybe, Shakespeare. I’m a bit thin on some of the history plays and the early comedies, however.
1980s! wow! I hope I’ll get there someday for Nabokov and Kafka certainly!
What about Laughter in the Dark. I have read most of Nabokov’s works, and though not as well-respected. These are two of my favorites.
It’s a good question, particularly because when you look at my list, only one of the novels VN wrote in Russian makes the cut. My short answer is that all of the early novels feel thin to me (though I can’t remember if I’ve read The Eye right now). However, if you asked me to explain why they feel thin, I’d be at a loss to explain at the moment. I’ll put Laughter on my bedside table and if you’ll give me a little time, I’ll see if I can give you a better answer.
By the by, are you at Northwestern? I have a high school junior son who is interested in the school.
Just graduated and loved it would highly recommend. I like the Eye for its interesting use of first-person. I agree with thin as an adjective for both relative to his more famous works. I liked Laughter a lot as I see it like Lolita-lite. A similar hopeless and self-deluded romantic becoming obsessed. Is your list in order of preference. I haven’t read a few of his most famous works, and was trying to pick between Pnin and Ada to read next.
My list is in order of my preference … and as you can probably see, I tend to like the hidden “nice” Nabokov — some people think that’s a delusion — and fewer pyrotechnics. That’s why Pale Fire, arguably VN’s greatest book, falls down where it does on my list. Hard to pick between Pnin and Ada. I’d say – how much work do you want to do reading your next book? Pnin is easy, although lots of little patterns appear on re-reading. Ada is best approached after reading some introduction, just so you don’t expend huge amounts of energy the first time trying to figure what the heck is going on. Brian Boyd’s chapters on Ada in his Nabokov The American Years biography is the best place to start, I think. I like your idea of the Russian novels being “protos” of Nabokov’s later English novels. Seems just right. The deluded criminal-artist in Despair seems like a warm-up for Humbert Humbert and Kinbote. (Thanks for the recommendation of NW.)
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.My sin, my soul. Lo-Lee-Ta.The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps…”
This is a gem of a book.
I read it once, and I am reading it again. Somehow the book has managed to become even more beautiful and entertaining.
An absolute must-read to anyone who loves reading.
Despite the controversial subject matter of the novel, Lolita is a comedy, and simply, a joy to read.
Thanks Neha. I have to say though Lolita has some funny bits, I can’t think of it as a comedy.
I also read Lolita as a comedy. How can you not? It’s a riot. I just recently finished. First time reading Nabokov, though it was long overdue for me. The book is a paradox–on the one hand its subject matter is one of the great horrors/taboos/crimes of our society, and on the other it’s told in a completely hilarious neurotic manner. And let’s not forget Lolita was no innocent girl by any stretch of the imagination. The idea of a nymphet is of a young girl who is a sexual deviant–a marked difference from your typical girl of comparable age. But really I’m not trying to justify Humbert’s actions, only Nabokov’s.
I’m going to follow the natural progression of time and read the novel he wrote next, Pnin. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. The man has proved to me one thing for sure: he might just have the most command over the English language of ANY American author.
Humbert is certainly funny is his horrible way, and makes much of the novel funny as a result; but having turned the matter in my mind for a day, I can’t see a way of concluding the total effect of the novel is comic because I think Nabokov and also Humbert (although with Humbert there is cause for reasonable doubt about his sincerity) take Lolita’s pain too seriously. I don’t see Lolita as sexual deviant. I’d say she’s sexually precocious, willful, and poorly supervised – to say the least. Humbert says Lolita seduced him the first time, and I believe him, although taking anything HH says at face value is a dangerous thing. However, I also think it is clear from a mass of detail in the story that the first time was the only time Lolita consented. Stepping outside the book, I’d say this consent should not have been abused by an adult regardless and that Lolita’s lack of sexual innocence is neither here nor there. I suspect you agree and I’m trying not to be overly argumentative. If I’ve managed to be despite myself, my apologies.
I certainly agree with your assessment of VN’s command of English, but of course I’m partial. And I smiled happily when you called him an American author, since I’ve seen the question of whether VN is a “Russian” writer or an “American” writer banged about on numerous occasions, an abstract and not very useful question to which Nabokov himself provided a clear answer. He regarded himself quite proudly as an American, and his answer has always been good enough for me.
Actually, I think you are spot on with your assessment of the book. Lolita consented the first time, and after that it was quite literally kidnapping, imprisonment and sexual abuse. I also noticed a shift in the tone as the book moves into its final fifth or so–becomes much less comic and much more serious and melancholy (around the time and certainly after he visits Dolly with Dick). It’s like around this time Humbert fully realizes and discusses the amount of damage and pain he has caused Lolita.
As far as whether Nabokov should be labeled a Russian author or an American, well I think it’s quite clear he was both–no small feat. Lolita is most certainly one of the greatest American novels. That being what it is, it could only come from an “American” author. I don’t care where he was born or when he came to the States. The fact is that he did, and while here wrote some great American books. Cheers!
I have nothing to add except to thank you for the interesting, thoughtful comments. Best! P
Pnin above Pale Fire? That’s bold. Or foolhardy.
Thanks for your list. I just read Lolita for the first time – being more of a movie buff – I’d seen the Kubrick and the Lynn movies, generally preferred the latter as being more faithful to the text I think( Though I preferred the Kubrick acting – James Mason was excellent in the role of Humbert and i liked Sellers’s comic grotesque Quilty.- many don’t). What’s ypur assessment of the movies?
I think Lolita knows perfectly well in her innocent child like way what she’s doing entrapping a good looking older man – she is a nymphomaniac and Humbert’s attentions cure her of that so she can settle down with one man, marry and have a child. Of course legally Humbert is a child rapist. I think Nabokov manages to write a beautifully erotic novel on a variety of sexual deviant ‘acts’ (not full on intercourse as the narrator wasn’t interested in that) but you have you use your imagination and know what’s fundamentally going on. He couldn’t be too specific or it becomes pornography.. CHEERS!
Hi David! It’s been a long time since I saw either movie. What I remember most about Lynn’s movie was that it showed how the story looked on the outside, which was interesting (sorta) and the beautiful opening sequence. Everything was downhill from there for me. Kubrick’s film I recall being a mixed bag, but capturing some of the feel of Humbert’s voice, probably because Nabokov wrote the screenplay and Kubrick ain’t a half-bad choice for director.
Knowing what Lolita is feeling in the book is tricky because everything we know about her comes from HH (aside from a few details in the introduction); HH is self involved and possibly unreliable; and we don’t know if he accurately reports “events” in the “real world” of the novel. (I gotta double world of fictions going on here, I know.) That said, I’ll take HH’s word that Lolita was willing once: that was first time. Then it gets pretty horrible and even HH through the iron wall of his obsession seems to know it from time to time. I could find the pieces from the novel along those lines. It would take me a day or two. Thanks for the compliment of the long and thoughtful comment! PGM
Hi.
I love them all to some extent but I think “Lolita” is the one that impressed me the most.
What I like with Nabokov is that there is more beneath the surface than the eye can see.
As Nabokov admitted in two interviews in the 60s, there is a subjacent level of reading in several of his books, among them he named “Lolita” explicitly.
For instance in one of these interviews he said: “(Lolita) was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle – its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look”.
And indeed, we can see phenomenons of reflection in the novel (e.g. Pratt / Trapp, Blanche Schwarzman / Melanie Weiss, the widow Haze / the widow Hays, etc…).
Here’s a link about the subject if you’re interested:
– https://wittevlinders.wordpress.com/
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Thanks, I’ll take a look. And thanks for stopping by! PGM