King, Queen, Knave

Written by Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by Christopher Lane

The novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men's clothing emporium store.  Ruddy, self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife Martha.  Attracted to his money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs for their nephew instead, the myopic Franz. Newly arrived in Berlin, Franz soon repays his uncle's condescension in his aunt's bed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Dec 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781441872692

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov (San Petersburgo, 1899-Montreux, 1977), uno de los más extraordinarios escritores del siglo XX, nació en el seno de una acomodada familia aristocrática. En 1919, a consecuencia de la Revolución Rusa, abandonó su país para siempre. Tras estudiar en Cambridge, se instaló en Berlín, donde empezó a publicar sus novelas en ruso con el seudónimo de V. Sirin. En 1937 se trasladó a París, y en 1940 a los Estados Unidos, donde fue profesor de literatura en varias universidades. En 1960, gracias al gran éxito comercial de Lolita, pudo abandonar la docencia, y poco después se trasladó a Montreux, donde residió, junto con su esposa Véra, hasta su muerte. En Anagrama se le ha dedicado una «Biblioteca Nabokov» que recoge una amplísima muestra de su talento narrativo. En «Compactos» se han publicado los siguientes títulos: Mashenka, Rey, Dama, Valet, La defensa, El ojo, Risa en la oscuridad, Desesperación, El hechicero, La verdadera vida de Sebastian Knight, Lolita, Pnin, Pálido fuego, Habla, memoria, Ada o el ardor, Invitado a una decapitación y Barra siniestra; La dádiva, Cosas transparentes, Una belleza rusa, El original de Laura y Gloria pueden encontrarse en «Panorama de narrativas», mientras que sus Cuentos completos están incluidos en la colección «Compendium». Opiniones contundentes, por su parte, ha aparecido en «Argumentos».

Reviews for King, Queen, Knave

[Paul Lyons · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic. Surely one of Nabokov's very greatest novels. Cynical, poignant, hilarious, surreal, I'm amazed it's not more famous. Christopher Lane's reading is superb, drawing out every tangent and nuance of Nabokov's brilliant prose. Highly recommended.

[Claudio Pascale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From start to finish a delicious book excellent audio
Eloquent ,funny and a step back in time all in one

[dbsovereign · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Only Nabokov can write soap opera that is so profoundly psychological. Tied to some interior plotting of their own, Nabokov's characters are always a part of something else (there's a lot going on...). Not my favorite Nabokov, but worth a read nevertheless.

[jeffome · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So, 'Lolita' shows up on every book list ever compiled it seems, yet i have never read it. Over the years, other Nabakov books have found their way to my library, and since i typically read an author's books in the order they were written, I figured i would start here. First of all, the trashy cover annoyed me, making me feel i had to hide this book when in public, but i persevered. A weird book for sure. I could never quite grasp the attraction between the 2 characters drawn together, so i struggled there. However, there was certainly some interesting insight throughout the book tucked in with little side quips which i did enjoy. And i was not certain specifically how it was going to end, so that drove me at the end. An OK book at best for me.....sort of a chick-book rather inconsistently put together; the writing style seemed to continually fluctuate. As always, no big regrets, but not sure i would highly recommend to anyone.

[eas311 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Got off to a fantastic start. Fizzled a bit toward the end though...

[lyzadanger · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 Nabokov's second novel, written in the late 1920's in Germany, traces the torpid and illusory throes of a love triangle pitting young, mawkish Franz against his rich and boisterous uncle Dreyer. Their joint target: Dreyer's unattainable, beautiful and manipulative wife.Ostensibly the characters are German, the novel's main setting Berlin. But, though sensual, languorous descriptions of rooms and gestures abound, the locale and nationality recedes more or less, and I am reminded of Chekov's country families or the Russian elite at summer dachas when the Dreyers gather at table during the warmer months of the book.Franz, just off the turnip truck (or, really, the train into town, on which he coincidentally shares a compartment with none other than his future benefactor and paramour), comes to the big city and begins work as a salesman in his uncle's department store. It's only a matter of time before he sets eyes on Dreyer's wife Martha, and she begins to see him as an innocent, perfect, passionate replacement for her upbeat and stable husband. Juvenile, vulgar trysts ensue. The intimacy is anatomical, repulsive. Everything has a sexual and creepy tinge, offset by Franz' obsessive jags of disgust (at smells, at saliva, excrement; though this doesn't stop him from producing copious amounts of his own) which send him reeling and fleeing. We ourselves want to flee when we're shut into his damp, grim room with him and Marta during their bouts of rather hideous lovemaking. The entire book feels like an extreme closeup, showing us the pores and pustules of humans and their delusions. Martha, in her sharp-cornered role of icy temptress exudes her femme fatale nature strongly enough that Franz doesn't notice for some time that she actually resembles an 'old toad.' His early perceptions of her brew perfection from slight flaws: he flies into ecstasy over the fuzz of her upper lip, an unbecoming sweater, a pockmark. As he tires of their affair, we hear his noticing of her 'fat thigh' without the embellishment. This spells doom.Most of the novel is watching Franz and Martha come to the decision that they need to do away with Dreyer to enable their hazy vision of bliss. It's stupid, of course. A folly. There is a lot of developing Nabokovian symbolism here, of course. Watch for automatons and hints of the ensuing Nazi threat. Some feels a bit pat in light of Nabokov's later exquisite works, and KQK falls short of the immediate rapture and brightness of his first work, Mary. What Nabokov does brilliantly here is segue between perception and imagination, stream-of-consciousness, dreams and then back into narrative again—all while, of course, employing taut wordplay—without stumping the reader. It feels natural in flow, especially because this late-1960s translation, a collaboration between Nabokov's son and the author himself, reworked large pieces of the book to fit better in English, and to reflect changes based on cultural hindsight. The Nazi foreshadowing was increased, and a sentence that caught my eye, that Franz would later be 'guilty of worse sins than avunculicide', added. The book is worth reading, especially for Nabokov fans. But if you are looking for an entry point or are less committed to untangling the web of the great Russian/French/English writer, read Mary instead.

[novelcommentary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading this, especially after recently reading Gatsby. It was interesting to realize that this storyline also takes place in the 20's but over in Europe. Nabokov is playful in his writing, at times breaking away form the narrative and talking to his readers. He even makes a cameo appearance near the end of the story where a beautiful foreign couple walks past the main character. The story is a classic love triangle where a once fairly geeky nephew begin to grow ( in many ways)as he enters into a love affair with his benefactor's wife. Dreyer, who remains amazingly unaware of the relationship, plays the cuckold husband. Franz and Martha at times seem desperately in love and at other times seem to be going through the motions. Even the planned out murder scene is postponed only because Dreyer hints that he is about to make a lot of money. There is a subplot about Dreyer entering into a business deal to make robot like store mannequins, and according to the snippets of analysis I read , their success mimics the success of the plotting couple. All in all this was a different kind of book for me, but I was glad to move away from only the most recent of fiction. I have another old Nobokv on my shelf -Ada- which I will also have to get to someday.

[sb3000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nabokov's second novel, originally written in Russian and translated by his son Dmitri. Nabokov himself revisited the novel in the '60's and made some fairly substantial (judging from his introduction) revisions. A more-or-less conventional adultery plot with some twists, the action split between Berlin and a seaside resort. Plot, of course, is only a small fraction of what makes a Nabokov novel enjoyable. Even in this early work, his observations and characterizations are sharp, and he's having fun with language and with the reader. I thought I detected a slight awkwardness in some passages, almost as if something had not quite come through in the translation. Perhaps not surprising with an author as fond of wordplay as VN. Whether real or imagined on my part, this is a minor quibble - KQKn (as VN himself abbreviated it) is clever, entertaining, and very much worth reading if you've enjoyed other Nabokov.