Look at the Harlequins!
First edition
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| Author | Vladimir Nabokov |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | McGraw-Hill Companies |
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Publication date
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1974 |
Look at the Harlequins! is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, first published in 1974. The work was Nabokov's final published novel before his death in 1977.
Look At the Harlequins! is a fictional autobiography narrated by Vadim Vadimovich N. (VV), a Russian-American writer with uncanny biographical likenesses to the novel's author, Vladimir (Vladimirovich) Nabokov. The novel itself has seven parts.
Part One
VV is born in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg to two parents who divorce and remarry "at such a rapid rate" that VV's custody is transferred to his grand-aunt, Baroness Bredow. It is VV's grand-aunt who advises him to "look at the harlequins." "Play! Invent the world! Invent reality!" she tells him. At eighteen years old, after the Bolshevik Revolution-- and after VV spends time in an Imperial Sanatorium-- he flees the country, via a fairy-tale path, on which he kills a Red Guard with a pistol. After his escape, VV makes his way to London, where he finds Count Nikifor Nikodimovich Starov. Count Starov is a great admirer of VV's "beautiful and bizarre" mother, and possibly VV's actual father. With Count Starov's patronage, VV attends Cambridge, where in the spring term of his final year (1922), he is invited to spend the summer with a classmate, Ivor Black.
During his summer with Ivor Black, VV meets Black's twenty-one year old sister, Iris Black. Iris pretends to be deaf upon meeting VV, but is quickly discovered. The two then spend the summer becoming closer, Iris inspiring VV to write poems. On one beach outing, VV discloses to the reader that he cannot swim in open water without his whole body at risk of paralyzation, an anomaly that has occurred several times in his youth. Dovetailing this confession to the reader is VV's confession to Iris that he cannot imagine walking down a street or path, and then imagine turning around again and walking back; while VV can do this in reality, it is an impossible task in his mind. VV apparently must confess this before he is able to ask a woman to marry him.
Iris and VV then become married and move to Paris, where VV's literary career takes off. He publishes Tamara (1925), Pawn Takes Queen (1927), and Plenilune (1929), each novel in Russian. Iris also begins to write during this time, and is not considered to be accomplished by VV. She continually writes, and then rewrites, and then quits various writing projects. As Iris does not speak Russian, and VV is particularly private about his writing, Iris begins taking Russian classes from a tutor.
Part one ends with Iris being shot and killed by Lieutenant Wladimir Starov-Blagidze, the husband of Iris's Russian language tutor. Starov-Blagidze is believed to have been having an affair with Iris, and passionate, and possibly mad, the Lieutenant kills Iris in the street (April 23rd, 1930). VV and Iris's brother cover up the affair and make the shooting look accidental, by misinforming the police about the shooting.
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