An amusing read which I finished early hours of the morning!
The main characters were very well written and had enough depth to keep them fresh.
An amusing read which I finished early hours of the morning!
The main characters were very well written and had enough depth to keep them fresh.
What a cover!
Charity shop score and have made a good start.
Rather like the air and tongue in cheek style, plus his general prose.
Nabokov and age-differentials in (failed) romance. This book was boring for 100 pages, and then it wasn‘t, then it was terrific. Many an ode to Tolstoy as the middle-age married Albinus takes up Anna Karenina‘s role and falls for a teenage girl desperately in need of some 💵. The tragic-comedy has plot draw, and then there are the visuals and the contrast of these visuals with blindness. (think Plato‘s cave)
I can accept that all stories are fairy tales and that Nabokov taught that, but it‘s still entertaining he chose to begin this one literally, “Once upon a time...”
“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.”
#QuotsyMar20 | 16: #Miracle
📷: Made with Typorama
I don‘t have any good pictures for today‘s #Gratitude30. And there‘s no one around to take a picture of for #Laughter. So I came up with this instead...hope it‘s okay @hermyknee
4/5📖. Albinus leaves his wife for a young mistress. An artist, his mistress looks to him to start her acting career. He becomes too trusting of his mistress and she preys upon his weaknesses.
I can‘t begin to describe the sadness I feel watching (reading about) someone make bad decisions in life and ultimately ruin themselves. In some ways, this is the opposite of Lolita—in that young Margot is the villain who is heartless and horrible to Albinus and destroys him. Weirdly, you actually feel sorry for the terrible man who left his wife and child to find happiness with this much younger woman. Nabokov definitely makes you feel.
When middle-aged Albinus meets the young enigmatic, and seductive Margot, he thinks he's #rightnexttotherightone... But little does he know how everything is going to turn out. This is a LAUGH OUT LOUD kind of book translated into English by Nabokov himself! 🖤
#SeptemberDanes @Kalalalatja @Cinfhen
I couldn't resist buying this gorgeous simple Penguin Classics edition and I couldn't resist reading it either!
This is a tale that begins with "Once Upon a Time..." and is as tragic as it is comical!
I can't wait to read more and more Nabokov. Similarly to Humbert Humbert, Albinus is this short novel's disgraced middle-aged male protagonist. That seems to be a recurrent element..
(Gorgeous bookmark from @ju.ca.no ?)
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Congrats @GondorGirl on 10k that‘s amazing!
My favorite opening line is the tagged book:
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.
Long two sentences that drew me in instantly.
#Gg10k
Well I can easily say books #overpower me a lot. They overpower my sleep, my wallet, and my time. New books even overpower my TBR stack! 😅
#TuneintoNovember
This one gets a little dark in the end as well as being in the title.
#NoteworthyNovember
Hopefully I won‘t be posting all these at night for the month 😂
If only Albinus had known his enemy throughout this entire story. It started with himself!
#knowyourenemy #Roctober
My heart hurts today for Las Vegas. I'm thinking of all those affected.
I think it's safe to say I #binge on books which I know you all understand 😂 #AutumnReads this is only two of the five full shelves on this bookcase!
It's been a rough couple of days. Remember to take care of yourself. Try to find things that make you laugh. I'm doing both of these things by treating myself to a pedicure and reading the UCB Comedy Improvisation Manual (which I couldn't find in the @Litsy database) after attending my first Improv class today. It was so revitalizing to be in a room full of equally traumatized people who are grieving for America, then make each other laugh. ❤️