The Best Short Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

"Signs and Symbols" and the Great Short Fiction of Nabokov

Oct 5, 2009

Vladimir Nabokov had an enormous impact on literature and stories. "Signs and Symbols" is one of his best short stories--a small gem in his large oeuvre of short fiction.

Though most famous for his novels (Lolita, Pale Fire, Invitation to a Beheading, Despair), Vladimir Nabokov was also a master of the short story. Widely considered one of the 20th century’s most gifted authors—for his wit, his exquisite taste for horror and human folly, and his unfailing eloquence and pathos—Nabokov’s genius and influence on the short story form was so great that John Updike included the Nabokov short “That in Aleppo Once…” in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, despite its not meeting the basic criteria of being set in America or featuring American characters.

Nabokov's Short Stories a Diverse Collection

A trilingual cosmopolitan intellectual, Nabokov held great influence across national boundaries, writing in both English and Russian, and translating his own work and others' between English, Russian, and French. In addition to his novels and essays, Nabokov published nearly a dozen collections of short stories during his lifetime (many uncollected stories have been released posthumously). The stories appeared originally in both English and Russian in an incredibly diverse selection of publications across the Western world. He was truly an international man of letters, and by all rights, a literary genius.

Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols"

One of Nabokov’s best short stories, “Signs and Symbols”—a devastating glimpse at a couple’s struggle to deal with their mentally deranged child—was featured on the June, 2008 edition of the New Yorker’s fiction podcast. Author Mary Gaitskill reads and comments on the short story along with the New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Triesman.

The rendition is well worth a listen. Gaitskill, with soft, demure intonations, enhances the mounting tensions throughout the story. Mirroring the child's bizarre paranoia, the reader is struck with a sense that each and every mundane detail holds worlds of hidden, sinister import. Nabokov's sentences, read aloud, cascade with perfect rhythm, rendering exquisite psychological landscapes.

To whet your appetite, a brief sample of Nabokov’s incredible description of the young boy’s dementia: “With distance the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. The silhouettes of his blood corpuscles, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains; and still farther, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up in terms of granite and groaning firs the ultimate truth of his being.”

The story swells with psychological complexity and indulges in naked and exuberant emotional flights, the force and detail of which are extremely rewarding and, most impressively, never strained. Sentences are at once sharp, direct, as well as rich with detail and lyricism. From its opening line forward, the story is absolutely arresting: "For the fourth time in as many years they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to bring a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind."

Further Nabokov Short Story Reading

Nabokov's complete body of work is almost endless. Many other Nabokov short stories are available for free on the New Yorker’s online archives; all sixty-eight short stories he wrote during his lifetime, including fourteen previously unpublished stories in English, are collected in the Vintage paperback, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.

The copyright of the article The Best Short Stories of Vladimir Nabokov in Modern American Fiction is owned by William Litton. Permission to republish The Best Short Stories of Vladimir Nabokov in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.