- Gebundene Ausgabe: 322 Seiten
- Verlag: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press (November 2000)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0802116655
- ISBN-13: 978-0802116659
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 22,9 x 15,2 x 3,6 cm
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 2.411.897 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire
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Produktbeschreibungen
From Booklist
Cuban-born Prieto, who spent 12 years studying and working in Russia, has written a novel that is at once entertaining in its own right and also a homage to Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator of this structurally complex tale, J., is an international smuggler hired by a Swede to capture a rare butterfly. However, in Istanbul he meets the beautiful V., who has been lured from her Russian village into a life of white slavery. J. soon contrives to help V. escape and return with him to Russia, but like most risky plans, this one comes to a different ending than J. had counted on. The connection with Nabokov is more than butterflies, as Prieto appropriates the (later) Nabokovian manner of slipping Russian phrases and sentences into his text. Furthermore, J. is something of a linguist (having a rudimentary to excellent knowledge of various languages, as his trade would require) and a well-read one at that, who often makes literary allusions. Prieto's a good enough writer to handle that neo-Nabokov style, and he succeeds on the whole despite an ending weakened by his metaphysical bow to Dostoevsky (whose work Nabokov disliked). Frank Caso
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Synopsis
Offered a commission to illegally trap a rare Russian butterfly, J. decides to use the opportunity to smuggle his Russian lover, who has no papers, back into her homeland, but after she mysteriously vanishes in the port of Odessa, he spends his time waiting for her return, reading her letters, and hoping to find both the butterfly and his lost love
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Einleitungssatz
Seven sheets of rice paper illuminated by afternoon light. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Auszug | Rückseite
Seven sheets of rice paper illuminated by afternoon light. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
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5 Rezensionen
6 von 6 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Witty, Delicate, Delightful
7. Februar 2002
Format:Taschenbuch
Imagine the precocious offspring of Borges and Nabakov. Then imagine said progeny in front of a typewriter, living off the sum total of his parental royalties. The result would be something like this. Read it slowly, savor its many smile-inducing similes, like comparing the accumulation of traffic at a red light, and then it's release at a green light to that of a drop of water approaching its maximum weight before falling off the tip of a leaf. Something like that. I'm not the author. Obviously. Just a reader who enjoyed the author's work. Like the wings of a butterfly -- delicate, intricate. You'll want to chase after it again and again.
5 von 5 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
The lost art of letter writing...
7. Juli 2002
Format:Taschenbuch
I liked this book well enough reading it, even though it is a bit slow for my style. Actually, in the present, not a whole lot happens other than the main character has made his way to the Crimea on the pretense of trying to find a specimen of butterfly that is said to be extinct, but if he finds, he will be paid a pretty penny for.
However, there's more to the book than a butterfly place. J. (the main character) is a player.. He makes his money buying things, selling things, transporting things across borders, etc. "Professional smuggler", if you will. He thinks he's the master of his game.
And maybe he is one of the masters of the goods-running, but he wasn't expecting V., a beautiful Russian woman, who played on his feelings, then used him to escape Turkey and return to her native Russia. J. is convinced that somehow, since she has managed to contact him through the post, that he can study the art of letter writing to somehow find favour with her once again.
With such a scenerio, the 'more classic' writing style fits well. Reading this, one can almost imagine that one is back in the late 1800's, despite the fact that the map of Europe has changed drastically, and one of J.'s wares that comes up many times are night-vision-goggles. At the same time though, had I not a lot of "down time" to actually sit and read, I'm not sure that I would have had the patience needed to enjoy the 'atmosphere' of the book.
3 von 3 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Unique and absorbing. Not, however, lite reading.
23. Juli 2006
Format:Taschenbuch
Nocturnal Butterfiles of the Russian Empire is a very complex and convoluted book. Written by a Cuban writer, the story nominally revolves around a Cuban smuggler in Russia who is attracted to, and decides to rescue, a Russian expatriate in Istanbul from a life of sexual enslavement. The real subject of the book is the ways in which social upheaval can color one's life and philosophy in ways that one cannot originally imagine.
The essentials of this story are laid out quickly and succinctly at the beginning--virtually the only quick and succinct aspects of this novel. For this is a very densly wriiten and convoluted text. Prieto imbues the protagonist's--identified only as J--voice with endless layers of descriptive detail that run on in ever longer extended sentences that often encompass four or five complete sub-subjects within it's bounds. This does not make for light reading. On the other hand, Prieto is blessed with a truly wonderful ability to render the visual into the verbal, leaving a seemingly endless series of complex visual mental images in one's head with every turned page.
Although superficially the two main characters are on every level unlikable, Prieto infuses them with such introspective flair and bravado that one comes to sympathize with them and, therefore, take the threats to their enterprise very much to heart, making this the most unlikely of suspense novels. The only other book I can remotely compare it to id Smilla'Sense of Snow, another dense and multi layered story involving somewhat repulsive protagonists one nevertheless gets to care about deeply.
While this one takes some effort to get through, the effort is well worth while. This is a very compelling and engrossing read.
The essentials of this story are laid out quickly and succinctly at the beginning--virtually the only quick and succinct aspects of this novel. For this is a very densly wriiten and convoluted text. Prieto imbues the protagonist's--identified only as J--voice with endless layers of descriptive detail that run on in ever longer extended sentences that often encompass four or five complete sub-subjects within it's bounds. This does not make for light reading. On the other hand, Prieto is blessed with a truly wonderful ability to render the visual into the verbal, leaving a seemingly endless series of complex visual mental images in one's head with every turned page.
Although superficially the two main characters are on every level unlikable, Prieto infuses them with such introspective flair and bravado that one comes to sympathize with them and, therefore, take the threats to their enterprise very much to heart, making this the most unlikely of suspense novels. The only other book I can remotely compare it to id Smilla'Sense of Snow, another dense and multi layered story involving somewhat repulsive protagonists one nevertheless gets to care about deeply.
While this one takes some effort to get through, the effort is well worth while. This is a very compelling and engrossing read.
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