may be seen as a more mature and enlarged version of Nabokov's first novel
Mary(1926), with an added jumbling of narrative styles and generic forms. It is permeated with a strong “literary” component, largely (though not exclusively) relating to Russian literature – both nineteenth-century “classical” and émigré. According to Nabokov's English-version foreword, indeed, his novel's heroine “is not Zina, but Russian Literature” (9). Published serially (as
Dar) in a Russian émigré journal in 1937-8, the work appeared shorn of its fourth chapter, the “biography” of the nineteenth-century radical, Nikolay Chernyshevski (retaining Nabokov's idiosyncratic spelling), which was censored by the editors in circumstances strikingly similar to those threatening the…
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Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Dar". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5747, accessed 22 November 2024.]
