''The Eye'' (russian: Соглядатай, ''Sogliadatai'', literally 'voyeur' or 'peeper'), written in 1930, is
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. Bo ...
's fourth
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
. It was translated into English by the author's son
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 Vlad ...
in 1965.
At around 80 pages, ''The Eye'' is Nabokov's shortest novel. Nabokov himself referred to it as a 'little novel' and it is a work that sits somewhere around the boundary between extended short story and novella. It was produced during a hiatus in Nabokov's creation of short stories between 1927 and 1930 as a result of his growing success as a novelist.
As in many of Nabokov's early works, the characters are largely Russian
émigré
An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate".
French Huguenots
Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...
s relocated to Europe, specifically Berlin. In this case, the novel is set in two houses where a young Russian tutor, Smurov, is renting room and board.
Plot summary
The action of the novel largely begins after the (perhaps fatal) suicide attempt of the
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
. This occurs after he suffers a beating at the hands of a cuckolded husband (the protagonist has been having an affair with a woman called Matilda with whom he has also, apparently, been rather bored). After his supposed death, and assuming everything in the world around him to be a manifestation of his 'leftover' imagination, his "eye" observes a group of Russian émigrés as he tries to ascertain their opinions of the character Smurov, around whom much uncertainty and suspicion exists.
Themes
The novel deals largely with indeterminate locus of
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
and the
social construction
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
of identity in the reactions and opinions of others. Smurov exists as a fraud, nobleman, scoundrel, "sexual adventurer", thief, and spy in the eyes of the various characters. In some senses, Smurov is akin to the narrator of Dostoevsky's ''
Notes from Underground
''Notes from Underground'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform Russian: ; also translated as ''Notes from the Underground'' or ''Letters from the Underworld'') is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the journal ''Epoch'' in 186 ...
''. As the protagonist carefully collects these observations, he attempts to build a stable perspective on Smurov — whom we only belatedly discover is the narrator himself. The result is a meditation on the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity.
The work is the first one in Nabokov's oeuvre involving a first-person narrator and, specifically, one who imposes his fantasy world upon the real world. This was to be a structure that was developed further in later works such as
''Despair'' (1934), ''
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 co ...
'' (1962) and his final novel, ''
Look at the Harlequins!'' (1974). In a 1967 interview with
Alfred Appel Jr, Nabokov retrospectively suggested that the work might have represented a turning-point in his career in this respect.
References
Further reading
*
External links
A brief bibliography and summary of ''The Eye'' at Zembla.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eye
Novels by Vladimir Nabokov
1965 American novels
1930 Russian novels
American novellas
Russian novellas
Fiction with unreliable narrators