I always pick up one of the "Russian" novels by Nabokov with a certain thrill of anticipation. Not only is the reader about to be thrust into the Russian emigre population that moved into the large European cities following the Revolution of 1917, but is also to me made party to the evolving literary genius of the young Nabokov.
In this book, which the author describes as soaring "to the heights of purity and melancholy that I have only attained in the much later Ada," he deals with the themes of alienation and the romantic musings which accompany the lives of the lonely and unspectacular individuals who make their way through this world. For Martin Edelweiss, the main character of the book, life has become a series of romantic possibilities: "a necklace of lights" seen from a train in the French night, the woman who throws a brief glance in his direction, footpaths dissolving into a forest - all these become possible "gallant feats," if only in his mind.
Although Nabokov downplays the similarity between the background of Martin and his own, there is a great deal in this book that is autobiographical. The author's years of emigre life in various European cities, his university days at Cambridge, and his period of manual labor in the south of France all find their way into this novel. Perhaps because of the author's emotional involvement with the book, Glory brings to life a softer Nabokov, one who is content to let the book follow its own winding path and who refrains from interjecting the tautness of his earlier efforts.
As a stylist, Nabokov is incomparable and to read one of his books is an experience of sheer wonder. If this book does not rank with his highest achievements, it certainly demonstrates a more mature author at work, one who is on the brink of greatness.