-
The Gift
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
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- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 16
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
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- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 86
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
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4 out of 5 stars
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Russian emigre candy dandy murderers R my weakness
- By Darwin8u on 10-02-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Speak Memory
- An Autobiography Revisited
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 420
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 360
Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense.
-
4 out of 5 stars
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- By meredith mcarthur on 03-16-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Invitation to a Beheading
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 127
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4 out of 5 stars 34
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3 out of 5 stars
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Publisher's Summary
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.
One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.
Critic Reviews
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Don’t be daunted by the towering reputations of Russia’s literary giants. Listening is the perfect way to appreciate the masters. Russia is a sprawling country with a rich and complex history, which is reflected in its literature. Whether you’re keen on brushing up on classic Russian literature or you want to find a new author to explore, we’ve rounded up 13 of the best Russian authors, classic and contemporary, whose work you should know.
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What listeners say about The Gift
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Darwin8u
- 11-30-13
A complex and rich Künstlerroman
A very Proust-inspired (memory, love, dreams, art) Nabokov. The last of his Russian novels, 'the Gift' is a complex and rich Künstlerroman and is one of those novels that makes me wish I spent more time in college studying Russian simply so I could catch the nuanced differences between the Chapters where Nabokov is mimicking Pushkin, Gogol, and other Russian novelists.
Nabokov always amazes me with his ability to provoke, entertain and awe his readers. There are some novelists where it is clear they are writing for a certain audience. Nabokov seems content just to write novels that entertain an audience of one (VN). If someone else gets his books, well, it is all just a sugary and mischievous bonus, but overall ... he'd prefer to be left alone to categorize and pin his rare butterflies and metric variations.
16 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lara
- 08-15-14
Simply Beautiful
Where does The Gift rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The narrator is boring and monotonous, but the story is mindbogglingly clever and the imagery is top notch.
3 people found this helpful