Laughter in the Dark

Laughter in the Dark

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91  ·  rating details  ·  4,370 ratings  ·  293 reviews
This is the way Vladimir Nabokow's Laughter In The Dark begins: 'Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.' And he starts from here, with his characteristic dazzling skill and irony, and cl...more
Paperback, 292 pages
Published September 17th 2006 by New Directions (first published 1932)
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Sarah
Well, Laughter in the Dark was by far the worst novel I’ve read by Nabokov. And that’s to say that it was a solidly good, funny, and engaging book. Like many of his novels, the plot is your basic old- man- obsessed- with- inappropriately- aged- girl- who- also- happens- to- be- evil- and- this- as- you- might- guess- ends- in- tragedy and the tone is the only one you can have with such a plot – it’s a very dark comedy. I hope.

I found that this book fell into the same category as his other early...more
Paquita Maria Sanchez
Leave it to Nabokov to strip you of your faith in humanity.
Eric
I periodically revisit a handful of authors (kundera, kafka, calvino, queneau, fleming etc.) - why? to reaffirm my faith in humanity, or in something you may call "human achievement?" "art??" (ugh). perhaps for the thrill of experiencing a unique pleasure in a certain kind of intellectual, or, better, cerebral stimulation that has no equal anywhere else in nature (or human construction!) what am I talking about?!?!? all of this is a way of saying that nabokov is one of that select few, perhaps t...more
Mojgan
به شما میگن این تصویر بهم ریخته ی یک اسبه و باز شما با اولین نمایی که ازش می بینید مشتاقانه تصویر تکمیل می کنید
شما تمام داستان را در یک پاراگراف کوتاه میخونید اما باز ادامه میدید و بسیار زیبا با داستان جلو میرید
من به حماقت های آلبینوس نه خندیدم و نه لجم گرفت فقط بینهایت غمگین شدم برای کسی که جسارت کرد زندگی تکراری شو تغییر بده و زندگی باهاش بیرحم بود
Brent Legault
Oct 23, 2007 Brent Legault rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: blue angels, little tramps
Shelves: lovingly-reread
The trick with Nabokov, with any novelist, is to sympathize not with the characters but with characters' creator. There is no one in this novel to get behind, not even the betrayed wife or her sick little girl. Because they are but props, silent-movie cliches. All three of the leads are detestable, each in their own way. And the plot is as outlandish and unlikely as the films Nabokov was having fun with. What makes the book worth reading is, as always, his style and his lovely, lyrical detail. B...more
olaszka
i'm giving this book three stars for one reason only - i don't have to balls to give it any less because it's nabokov. the other day i bumped into a friend while reading this novel and told her how atrocious it was. she didn't quite believe me because she didn't think nabokov was capable of bad writing.
it turns out he is. i understand that this novel needed to happen so that lolita could happen twenty years later. i can see how it paved the way. but honestly, this is one lousy story, it's loli...more
Cynthia Haggard
“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster. This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man’s life, detail is always welcome.”


So beg...more
Brian Hull
I need to first admit that I'm a big fan of Vladimir Nabokov. I greatly enjoy his style of writing, and there has been only one book thus far that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed (Glory). This book is a tragic story of betrayal and deception. The main protagonist, a wealthy art critic named Albinus, falls for a young lover who ultimately becomes his ruin - this is a common theme that runs through most of Nabokov's work.

The story flows incredibly smoothly, with a few plot twists that while not entir...more
John
A 3.5

Leave it to Nabokov to tell give away the whole plot in the first paragraph and still make the book an intriguing story. Nabokov tells you right away that Albinus will leave his wife for a women who does not love him, and his life will end disastrously. And that is exactly what happens. Yet still as I read the book there was almost a disbelief about the whole thing, that certainly Albinus would not make the choices he did.

Nabokov is brilliant in capturing the blind rapture of love. That p...more
Pliyo Senpai
¿Y si existiera algo capaz de hacer peligrar el vínculo de un matrimonio? ¿Y si existiera un impulso por el que arriesgar toda la estabilidad construida durante años en pareja, a cambio de una idea superior de lo que entendemos por felicidad? ¿Y si tomásemos ese camino? ¿a dónde nos llevaría?

Algunos de estos interrogantes se podría haber preguntado Albinus, el protagonista de Risa en la oscuridad. Con él empezará la novela, con un paseo hacia su secreto, hacia la decisión que le hará arriesgar s...more
marg
Because I worship the ground Nabokov walks on, I can't give this fewer than three stars, and even felt compelled to go the full four, but that seemed a bit of a stretch.
Nabokov does two things extraordinarily well - language, and humor. This was the latter. However, this was really dark wit, and though I always think I'm into that, apparently I have my limits.
Laughter in the Dark is very obviously a farce, meant to, I suppose, highlight the absurdity of what passed (and perhaps passes) for moder...more
Venus
خنده در تاریکی از آن دست داستانهایی که زیاد شنیده ایم و خوانده ایم و شاهد بوده ایم . ناباکوف خود به طنز، دقیقا به همین نکته اشاره می کند که کل داستان را می توان در چند خط شرح داد به جایی هم برنمی خورد :
"روزی روزگاری در شهر برلین آلمان مردی زندگی می کرد به نام آلبینوس او متمول و محترم و خوشبخت بود، یک روز همسرش را به خاطر دختری جوان ترک کرد، عشق ورزید ، مورد بی مهری قرار گرفت و زندگی اش در بدبختی و فلاکت به پایان رسید" (ص 1)
داستان به شیوه ی دانای کل روایت می شود و نمایانگر طنز سیاه ناباکوف است.او...more
Michael
The first sentence of Laughter in the Dark tells you exactly how the book is going to end. The narrator says knowing the outcome won't matter, because the details leading up to the ending are just as important; a nice reminder that we should read in order to enjoy the journey and not just for the resolution.
The main character of Laughter in the Dark is Albinus, a middle aged, successful art critic who is chiefly motivated by aesthetics and a desire to be immersed and respected in the art world....more
Denis
This is the first novel by Nabokov that I've read so far. It's quite a surprising discovery. The plot is extraordinarily melodramatic, in a deliberately over the top way, even sometimes to the point of being hard to believe (as in the last part, which has a kind of Hitchockian feel), yet Nabokov makes it work with astonishing dexterity. He manages to do that mostly through his style : ironic, cruel, detached, amused, Nabokov's writing distances itself (and therefore the reader) from the crazines...more
Richard
I'm sticking up for this book. A lot of the reviews I've read have panned it, but they shouldn't. It's a great book.

The protagonist is a philandering middle-aged art critic named Albinus. He sets out to get a mistress--with disastrous results. The mistress he secures, Margot, is a vamp, a femme fatale, a pouting silver screen siren, a Louise Brooks look-alike who leads poor blundering Albinus around by his balls and his wallet. She demands they go on extravagant vacations. She throws temper tant...more
adam
I hadn't read any Nabokov in five or six years, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is to get into one of his novels. LAUGHTER IN THE DARK is about a middle-aged German art critic in the 1920's who leaves his wife and child for a 16-year old, beautiful, femme fatale-ish prostitute. She proceeds to methodically toy with and then destroy the critic's life with the help of her lover, an animator with a nihilist streak. This is usually regarded as one of Nabokov's early, inessential works, and its int...more
Winmonroe
Laughter in the Dark - Nabokov 5/10

Casa De Libros had a small selection of literature English including this book. My love for Nabokov is well known, but I found it curious such an earlier unheard of book would be among their narrow selection of literature in English (especially as it was written in Russian originally). I am typically very very careful in my book selection, which is why I am usually very pleased with everything I read and give all the things I read such high ratings. By the end...more
Bonnie
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Guilia
A first Nabokov for me - I thought despite the restrictions and constraints of translation, the writing moved very easily and was bright and lively, although at times i wondered if the descriptions were perhaps more simplistic and clumsy in English than they would have been in Russian.

Really enjoyed Rex's thoughts on Hegelian syllogism (not that i know much about Hegel anyway) but thought the sadism and cruelty heart breaking - God! And the ending ! That big brown suit!

The metaphor i thought wa...more
Joey-Joey-Jo-Jo
This book has the interesting property of becoming twice as awesome each time you get ~50% closer to the end of the story. The first 140 pages? Meh. There is mostly just this nervous tension as Albinus wrecks his life and marriage, a bit like when someone starts to walk into the basement in a horror movie. The next 70 pages are much better, as Rex joins the group and completes the triad. This section is close to the platonic form of a Nabokov book, and after the uninspiring first half it was so...more
Ann Johnson
I’ve read a lot of Nabokov, but haven’t yet read Lolita, and I guess it’s good that I got to Laughter in the Dark first, seeing as how so many people’s reviews categorize it as a warm-up for Lolita. So maybe it’s just because I am Lolita-naïve that I really really enjoyed Laughter. The story is painful but not in a sinister way, more in a real-life-is-not-a-fairy-tale way. The characters are destructive and repellent, but not to the point that I couldn’t find at least some sympathy for poor Albi...more
Alireza
ناباکوف می گوید نویسنده بایددر آن واحد سه نفر باشد: داستان گو، معلم و جادوگر که در نهایت جادوگر غلبه می کند. کاری که خودِ ناباکوف انجام می دهد.
جادو!
حتی این بدترین و کمترین رمانِ وی از لحاظ خلاقیت های ناباکوف بسیار خواندنی و جذاب است. این رمان در واقع زمانی که از سنت پترزبورگ به برلین مهاجرت کرده بودند نوشته شده. از نظر زمانی تقریبان همزمان با رمان چشم اوست. 1930
در فضای سینماییِ آن روز های برلین، روایتی طنز از قصه ای کلیشه ای را نمایش می دهد. اما طنزی سراسر خلاقیت و "ناباکوفی". طنزی که خودِ ناب...more
Ivana
In the opening lines Nabokov reveals both the plot and the tone of the book and yet it doesn't make it any less interesting. The opening lines attracted me immediately:

“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure...more
Dale R. Wilsey Jr.
This, being the first Nabokov novel I've read, has left me impressed. No, I have yet to read Lolita, but, if it is his masterpiece, then surely I will enjoy it even more so than this quick-paced, morbidly humorous and unfortunate tale.

These characters are absolutely treacherous and, although I almost have a hankering to feel badly for Albinus, the man gets what he deserves after having so many chances to redeem himself. A man who hits rock bottom and continues to plow right through it to Hell.

Ma...more
محمّد
نویسنده، کلیت داستان را در پاراگراف اول به صورت خلاصه میگوید. اینکه در پایان چه خواهد شد. البته توضیح میدهد که دانستن مسائلی که در این بین می‌افتد داستان را شکل میدهد و جذاب میکند.
این روزها هر جایی که سرک میکشی، در سینما، در عکسها و زندگی انسان‌های دور و بر، رابطه‌های موازی میبینی. خیانت مایه‌ی اصلی آنها را تشکیل می‌دهد. این کتاب هم داستان خیانت آلبینوس پولدار است که در کنار همسر و دخترش در برلین زندگی میکند. اما به سرش میزند که معشوقه‌ای که دلش را برده است را بدست آورد و با او زندگیش را بگذراند...more
Jered
Laughter in the Dark is definitely not as artfully written as Lolita. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that it was originally written in Russian and later translated by the author. Or, maybe it just shows how Nabokov improved as a writer between work on the two novels.
Laughter in the Dark feels like a trial run for Lolita. I would have been much more entertained by this novel if it did not remind me so much of that more famous work. The similarities make it impossible not to constantly c...more
Jennifer (JC-S)
Nov 05, 2011 Jennifer (JC-S) rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Jennifer (JC-S) by: Kristine
Shelves: lent-by-friend
‘Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man’s life, detail is always welcome. ’

And, as...more
Swati
Nabokov makes a daring move by revealing not only the plot but also the ending within the first paragraph of the novel ("Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster."). What is brilliant is that the reader still wants to read the book. However, do not think that the synopsis present in the first paragraph is exactly...more
Matt
I jumped into the Nabokov world with Lolita, and after I started reading this saw that many critics claim this as the 'foundation' for Lolita. I see the similarity.

Anything I could write about this book is actually written word for word right into the book; and not thinking that I can improve on Nabokov, it is probably best to cite his own words that set the stage for the next 280 or so pages:

Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy...more
Adrian Stumpp
This is probably the worst Nabokov book I've ever read, which is to say it's one of the best books I've read in months. Essentially, its the story of an illicit love affair, the inevitable destruction of a man who cheated, chose poorly, and ended up dead. But somehow, as with all of Nabokov's novels, it escapes being a morality play or a novel "with a message." The writing is first rate but the plot is utterly unspectacularly, plodding, and predictable until Albinus, the protagonist, goes blind...more
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Nabokov in Two Years: Impressions 1 6 Jan 16, 2012 08:05pm  
خنده در تاریکی
Laughter in the Dark (Paperback)
Laughter in the Dark (Paperback)
خنده در تاریکی
Risa en la oscuridad (Paperback)

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Russian: Владимир Владимирович Набоков

Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery and had an interest in chess problems.

Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intrica...more
More about Vladimir Nabokov...
Lolita Pale Fire Pnin Invitation to a Beheading Speak, Memory

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“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.”
23 people liked it
“A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That’s what I like about coincidence.” 22 people liked it
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