Nabokov’s style, here, is nowhere near as sophisticated and awe-inspiring as it is in Lolita (the only other of his I’ve read at this stage, unfortunately) but this is a slim, rich and delightful novel. And he is presented a choice, in the narrative, to continue the sweet, tortuous illusion or confront a tangible, visible person. Despite the grandeur of their descriptions, Ganin’s past encounters with Mary were fleeting and even quite chaste, but the reader views them through his nostalgic rose-tinted glasses. There is also the play with unreliability. ‘Klara considered that emotions of that kind ought to be more restrained, without violet irisis and crying violins’. There are descriptions to be savoured – wry, sweet, sad and delectable. In Mary we can already see flashes of Nabokov’s brilliance – both comedic and cruel. It takes him some time to break off with Lyudmilla, despite the fact he does not love her and is even a little repulsed by her: ‘Bored and ashamed, Ganin felt a nonsensical tenderness – a melancholy trace of warmth left where love had once fleetingly passed by – which caused him to kiss without passion the painted rubber of her proffered lips…’ The interactions serve to show Ganin’s boredom bordering on bitterness and his general dissatisfaction with people, and with life (he has lost his athleticism the environment has negative effects on him).

The book opens with Ganin in a series of interactions with other characters – being stuck in a lift with Alfyorov, and spending time with his girl Lyudmilla.

Ganin begins to entertain the thought that this Mary will be his Mary. His recollections are inspired by a fellow guest at the pension, Alfyorov – a daft, excitable and noisy man – who awaits his wife, also named Mary, whom he has not seen for some years. In Mary, Vladimir Nabokov’s first novel, a Russian man in Berlin, Ganin, recounts his one passionate love affair, with a young woman called Mary. Love is part attraction, part emotion and much imagination. (First published under pen name V Sirin in 1926.) Vladimir Nabokov (translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny, in collaboration with Nabokov)

Mary nabokov novel