The first story, Terra Incognita, is really enthralling and exciting to read, and one can tell that Nabokov's writing is top-notch throughout the book, but the narratives of the two other stories fall a bit flat in terms of how interesting they are. It was only the first one left me thinking, and it was only the first one that I could finish in one sitting without ending up feeling bored, hence why this is not being rated so high. The writing is absolutely beautiful though, don't get me wrong! In this bijou collection of three short stories–Terra Incognita, Spring in Fialta, and The Doorbell–Nabokov casts the reader into three distinctly different tales ranging from the abject terror of the unknown, through to a louche summertime of boredom, and finally a dissonant story of familial apathy.The writing, being pure Nabokov, is exemplary, and the tales bear the master's hallmarks of neat craft and verve. Rather than plumbing deep into the realms of ideas, Nabokov expresses himself as much in the spaces between words as he does in the choreography of finely balanced metre that makes the stories easily accessible, bright and lithe.This collection is reading for those that adore the immanence of writing, and as such makes a perfect escape into the rich world of words for those with little time to immerse themselves.
