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Mar 21, 2008

Sarah rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Paquita Maria rated it:

Leave it to Nabokov to strip you of your faith in humanity.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2008

Mojgan rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2007

Brent rated it:

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...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

marg rated it:

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 passe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 19, 2011

Venus rated it:

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 More...

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Mar 07, 2011

Michael rated it:

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 More...

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Feb 13, 2011

Denis rated it:

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...

1 comment like

Dec 20, 2010

Richard rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2010

adam rated it:

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...

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Oct 21, 2009

Winmonroe rated it:

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. More...

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Jan 24, 2008

Bonnie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 02, 2010

Ann rated it:

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 A More...

1 comment like

Aug 05, 2010

Alireza rated it:

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 "نابا More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2012

Dale R. rated it:

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 i More...

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Sep 21, 2011

محمّد rated it:

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 بگ More...

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Jun 04, 2010

Jered rated it:

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 t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Jennifer (JC-S) rated it:

‘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 we More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 06, 2011

Talita rated it:

This book was sort of an impulse buy during those "It's time to begin getting cultured" teenage years, when I bluntly realised I had never read anything by Nabokov, who I knew was brilliant because I'd seen him featured in a lot of "Books to Read Before You Die"-style lists, plus it was on the Facebook page of one of the coolest kids in school, and so on. So I bought it, spent a few days admiring its cover, and forgot about it.

That being said, it's also important More...

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Nov 09, 2010

Matt rated it:

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 More...

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Nov 16, 2009

Adrian rated it:

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 More...

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Oct 16, 2009

Saxon rated it:

Everything you could come to expect from Nabokov is here: forbidden love, denied love, unrequited love, life imitating art, suicide etc. All the while, a story unravels that is equal parts darkly comedic and heartbreaking. Written originally in Russian and then translated into English by Vlad himself, Nabokov apparently wanted this book to catch the eye of Hollywood in hopes of turning into a film (It was, 30 years later). In many ways you can tell hes trying to write a novel that would suit the More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Annie rated it:

Margot, an aspiring actress, falls deeply in love with her first suitor. After he leaves her abruptly, she allows herself to fall into another affair with the wealthy and persistent Albert, who uses his influence to land her a part in a film.

Margot learns the true identity of her first lover, Axel Rex, when he shows up at a party held by Albert. Axel's and Margot's feelings are immediately rekindled, and Margot must choose to reunite with the penniless Axel, or continue her loveless a More...

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Sep 21, 2011

thethingstheyread rated it:

Ahhhh. That’s my sigh of relief at being back. Back where? you ask. Back to my old self. You see, at the start of the year, several things and routines in my life shifted. The novelty of my “new” job wore off, and I stayed up later at night, which meant my productive reading-time commutes turned into AM/PM naptimes. I started a new relationship, and my solitary writer/reader weekends transformed into visiting/visitors weekends. But this morning I read the final chapters of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lau More...

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Jan 31, 2012

Nikos79 rated it:

In the first two sentences of the book, Nabokov having full knowledge of what he's doing gives us the whole story that will follow and prefigures us for the ending. However, the impressive thing is that I didn't loose my interest at any point while reading. Barely I was very curious on how to the plot will go on and how it will end. Without doubt this is a great writers achievement. The characters whose their main features are so different, are just fantastic. Contributing to creation of a compe More...

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Jul 20, 2011

Rachael rated it:

This was a difficult book for me to rate (I dislike such standardized rating systems for this very reason). On the one hand, Nabokov is clearly a genius. What else can you call an author who can write a book with characters I neither care for nor particularly identify with hanging onto a plot that was obvious from almost the moment I opened the cover, and still have me greedily devouring almost every page simply because of the way he tells the story. In this sense, it is no doubt better (and I e More...

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Dec 28, 2008

Kelcie rated it:

12/28 --Just finished this while at Jacob's parents' house in Hyrum for the weekend. Similar to Lolita in themes and dark, perfect lecherousness. It made me think about power dynamics in obviously unequal relationships-- the subtle power that is gained by allowing yourself the image of submission. A small, powerful attribute such as youth or beauty overrides the power of social standing or fortune with only the smallest bit of effort. Reminded me a little of Heart of a Dog in a strange way-- pro More...

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Feb 27, 2009

Angie rated it:

This is definitely the most accessible Nabokov novel. The plot itself is nothing remarkable, after all, he gives it away in the opening sentence: "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." But he goes on to write "This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been More...

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Apr 08, 2007

Hosein rated it:

Dark but lovely. as painful az passion. stupid and intellectual at the same time. taste like some kind of... say... class-Oriented [not a very pleasant affair!]. but nice. yap! really nice!

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2009

Jessica rated it:

"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."

With that opening line, Nabakov summarizes the entire plot line of Laughter in the Dark. This is the second Nabakov novel that I've read; the first being Lolita, which is one of my all time favorite novels. Laughter in the Dark pre-dates Lolita and More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)