Terra Incognita (short Story)
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Terra Incognita (short Story)
"Terra Incognita" is a short story written in Russian by Vladimir Nabokov that was first published in the émigré journal ''Posledniya Novosti'' in Paris in 1931. Translated by the author and his son, the story was published in English in ''The New Yorker'' in May, 1963, and later added to '' A Russian Beauty and Other Stories''. Plot summary Vallière (who is also the narrator), his friend Gregson, and Cook - "reminiscent of a Shakespearean clown" - are escaping from Zonraki, trying to cross the yet unknown country to reach the Gurano Hills. The mission is ill-fated. Vallière is sick and febrile. Cook takes off with the Badonian porters, the supplies, and the collections. Gregson and Vallière decide to move on, but are soon joined again by the contrite Cook who apparently was left behind by the Badonians. The narrator is experiencing hallucinations as the journey winds down to its end. He sees at times in "ambiguous transparency" a wardrobe, a ceiling, wallpaper, an armchair, a ...
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Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ...
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Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. Nabokov's 1955 novel '' Lolita'' ranked fourth on Modern Library's list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 2007 and is considered one of the greatest 20th-century works of literature. Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'', published in 1962, was ranked ...
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Dmitri Nabokov
Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Набо́ков; May 10, 1934February 22, 2012) was an American opera singer and translator. Born in Berlin, he was the only child of Russian parents: author Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera; they emigrated to the United States from France in 1940. He later was naturalized. In his later years, Nabokov translated many of his father's works into other languages, and served as the executor of his father's literary estate. Early life and education Dmitri Nabokov was born on May 10, 1934, in Berlin. He was the only child of Vladimir Nabokov and Véra Slonim Nabokov. Due to Nazi Germany's growing political and social repression, and the likelihood that the regime might target the family (his mother was Jewish), the family fled to Paris in 1937. With the Germans advancing into France, they emigrated to New York City by ship in 1940. Subsequently, Nabokov was raised in the Boston area during the years ...
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The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ...
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A Russian Beauty And Other Stories
''A Russian Beauty and Other Stories'' is a collection of thirteen short stories by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov. The short stories in this collection were originally written in Russian between 1927 and 1940 under the pseudonym Vladimir Sirin. Before being collated into short story collections, some were published by various European Russian émigré newspapers and magazines. This collection was published in English in 1973 by McGraw-Hill in New York, it was translated by Nabokov himself and his son Dmitri Nabokov as well as Simon Karlinsky who collaborated with the author to translate the first short story " A Russian Beauty". Stories included * " A Russian Beauty" written in 1934 * " The Leonardo" written in 1933 * " Torpid Smoke" written in 1935 * " Breaking the News" written in 1935 * " Lips to Lips" written in 1932 * " A Visit to the Museum" written in 1931 * "An Affair of Honor" written in 1927 * "Terra Incognita ''Terra incognita'' or ''terra ignota'' (Latin ...
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Pale Fire
''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters. Nabokov wrote ''Pale Fire'' in 1960–61, after the success of ''Lolita'' had made him financially independent, allowing him to retire from teaching and return to Europe. It was commenced in Nice and completed in Montreux, Switzerland. ''Pale Fire'' has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism, which Finnish literary scholar estimated in 1995 as more than 80 studies. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel", and the critic Harold Bloom called it "the surest demonstration of his own genius ... that remarkable tour de force". It was ranke ...
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A Family Chronicle
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ...
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Carapichea Ipecacuanha
''Carapichea ipecacuanha'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is native to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and Brazil. Its common name, ipecacuanha (), is derived from the Tupi ''ipega'kwãi'', or "road-side sick-making plant". The plant has been discussed under a variety of synonyms over the years by various botanists. The roots were used to make syrup of ipecac, a powerful emetic, a longtime over-the-counter medicine no longer approved for medical use in the West for lack of evidence of safety and efficacy. An example of emetic compound from the roots is emetine. Description Ipecacuanha is a slow-growing plant, which reduces its commercial appeal as a crop plant. It is seldom cultivated in South America but it has been cultivated in India and elsewhere. The root of ipecacuanha has been used in preparation of the medicament, the syrup, is simple or divided into a few branches, flexuous, and composed of rings of various size. It is somewhat fl ...
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Unreliable Narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unreliable narrators are almost by definition first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable second- and third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television, and sometimes also in literature. Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a frame in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrator h ...
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Short Stories By Vladimir Nabokov
Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as the Short Arts, entertainment, and media * Short film, a cinema format (also called film short or short subject) * Short story, prose generally readable in one sitting * ''The Short-Timers'', a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford, about military short-timers in Vietnam Brands and enterprises * Short Brothers, a British aerospace company * Short Brothers of Sunderland, former English shipbuilder Computing and technology * Short circuit, an accidental connection between two nodes of an electrical circuit * Short integer, a computer datatype Finance * Short (finance), stock-trading position * Short snorter, a banknote signed by fellow travelers, common during World War II Foodstuffs * Short pastry, one which is rich in butt ...
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1931 Short Stories
Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. * January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. * January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France. February * February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. * February 10 – Official ...
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