Glory (novel)

Glory (Russian: Подвиг) is a Russian novel written by Vladimir Nabokov between 1930 and 1932 and first published in Paris.

The novel has been seen by some critics as a kind fictional dress-run-through of the author's famous memoir Speak, Memory. Its Swiss-Russian hero, Martin Edelweiss, shares a number of experiences and sensations with his creator: goal-tending at Cambridge University, Cambridge fireplaces, English morning weather, a passion for early twentieth-century rail travel. It is, however, the story of an émigré family's escape from Russia, a young man's education in England, and his (perhaps) disastrous return to the nation of his birth—the "feat" of the novel's Russian title.

Translation

The text was translated by the author's son, Dmitri Nabokov, and published in English in 1971. The Russian title, Podvig, also translates as "feat" or "exploit."^[1] Its working title was Romanticheskiy vek (romantic times) as Nabokov indicates in his foreword and continues to characterize Martin as the "kindest, uprightest, and most touching of all my young men" whose goal is fulfillment. Nabokov remarks that he has given Martin neither talent nor artistic creativity.

Plot summary

Martin Edelweiss grows up in pre-Revolutionary St. Petersburg. His grandfather Edelweiss had come from Switzerland as a tutor. The watercolor image of a dense forest with a winding path hangs over Martin's crib and becomes a leading motif in his life. During Martin's upbringing, his parents get divorced, and his father whom he did not love not very much soon dies. With the revolution, his mother Sofia takes Martin first to the Crimea, and then they leave Russia. On the ship to Athens Martin is enchanted by the beautiful and older poetess Alla, who is married. From Athens, Martin and his mother move on and find refuge with his uncle Henry Edelweiss in Switzerland, who eventually would become Martin's stepfather. Martin goes to study at Cambridge and, on the way, meets the Zilanov family in London; he is attracted to their 16-year-old daughter Sonia. At Cambridge, he enjoys the wide academic offerings of the university and it takes him some time to choose a field. He fascinated by Archibald Moon, who teaches Russian literature. He meets Darwin, a fellow student from England, who has a literary talent. Soon he and Darwin both become interested in Sonia, but she rejects both their marriage proposals. Martin has a very brief affair with Ros,e who then indicates to have gotten pregnant, but Darwin unveiled her ruse. Just before the end of their Cambridge days, Darwin and Martin engage in a boxing match, as if fighting over Sonia. Martin is unsure what to do after Cambridge, to the dismay of uncle Henry. He goes to Berlin where the Zilanovs had moved to and where he met he writer Bubnov. He met Sonia and they imagined the phantasy land of Zoorland, a northern country championing absolute equality. Martin feels that Sonia is distancing herself, and takes off on a train trip to the South of France. At some distance he sees some lights in the distance at night, gets off the train, and finds the village of what he believes is Molignac. He stays there and works a while. Getting another negative letter from Sonia, he returns to Switzerland. On the way he sees Bubnov has written about Zoorland, - a betrayal by Sonia, who has become Bubnov's lover. In the Swiss mountains, he challenges himself to conquer a cliff he had failed to master before. He proceeds to meet the shady Gruzinov, who knows how to secretly enter the Soviet Union. Martin moves on, back to Berlin, where he meets Darwin who now works as a journalist, and has a final meeting with Sonia. He then takes the train to Riga planning to cross from there the border to the Soviet Union. When Darwin did not get the planned messages from Martin he eventually went to Switzerland to see Martin's mother and inform her of Martin's disappearance.

Critical response

Glory was, as the writer and critic John Updike observed in a 1972 New Yorker review, the author's fifth Russian-language novel but his last to be translated to English. "In its residue of bliss experienced," Updike writes, "and in its charge of bliss conveyed, 'Glory' measures up as, though the last to arrive, far from the least of this happy man's Russian novels."^[2] In his non-fiction book U & I, the writer Nicholson Baker classes Glory as among his favorites of Nabokov's Russian works.^[3]

References

External links

• An interpretation by Y. Isahaya, accessed 07-13-2008.