Status Updates From The Stories of Vladimir Nab...

"The Dragon" - 3.5 - VN does a proto-TC Boyle. florid but playful, so much so that it understays its welcome a bit. seems like he had the image of the snoozing dragon covered in advertisements in mind, but little else.

"Christmas" - 2.5 - wordy illustration of grief that concludes with some pretty potent, dreamlike imagery but otherwise drags

"A Letter That Never Reached Russia" - 3 - "reddens damply"

Bachmann ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Entertaining, but not mind blowing. It’s solid.

La Veniziana: ⭐️⭐️

Growing bored with the story and not enamored by the characters of this long one, I skipped right to the end, read a few snappy sentences from the middle, and got enough of the gist of the twisty bit to get a full grasp on it. Sue me.

"Bachmann" - 3.5 - nice little portrait of a goofy, solitary artist (a motif nabokov, maybe unsurprisingly, enjoys) in the midst of the greatest tragedy of his life. maybe this collection's first instance of a kind of pseudohistorical, quasiessayistic style.

"La Veneziana" - 4 - languorous, ornate, surprisingly silly. the slow burn and the posh texture are really annoying at first, but it all pays off in a big way, and you get some very entertaining bluster about art and the universe in the process.

The doorbell

El relato de La Veneciana me ha fascinado <3

The Thunderstorm ⭐️⭐️

Details of a Sunset ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoy these reflective stories, focused on the interiority of a character, though they still feel like something is missing to make them great. 🤷🏼‍♂️