One of the most fascinating characteristics of The Gift, the last novel Vladimir Nabokov wrote in Russian, is the slippage which takes place in the narrative point of view. Though the novel begins in the third person, and continues essentially in this mode throughout, quite often the "I" of the protagonist Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev breaks in with no warning to the reader. If this were not confusing enough, an additional parade of narrative acrobatics dances across the first chapter. (p. 138)

The novel does not have what could be called a coherent, logical narrative, which begins at a decisive point and develops to an inevitable conclusion. Its five chapters, including the biography in the fourth chapter, have occasionally been described as a series of related short stories. But the chapters do make a novel, and the key to all this is that the narrative is controlled by the consciousness of...