Nabokov

  • Speak, Memory
  • Mary
  • King, Queen, Knave
  • The Eye
  • Glory
  • Laughter in the Dark
  • Despair
  • Look at the Harlequins!
  • The Waltz Invention
  • Strong Opinions
  • The Defense
  • The Real Life
    of Sebastian Knight
  • Bend Sinister
  • Lolita
  • Pnin
  • Invitation to a Beheading
  • Transparent Things
  • The Gift
  • Ada or Ardor:
    A Family Chronicle
  • Pale Fire

Supplementary

  • The Magician's Doubts
  • Nabokov, The Man
    and His Work

Non-Bokov

  • Baudolino
  • The Trial
  • Outside Reading
  •  
  • Random

...the project

...the design

...the structure

 

 

The Project

The Nablogkov is – or will be – first and foremost, a joke. A really long one, that isn't necessarily funny so much as hopefully entertaining. Funny will depend on the reader's sensibilities and, sometimes, knowledge of the subject at hand.

I can't remember which of Nabokov's books I read first, but after a few more, I'd decided that I wanted to read them all someday. Then I moved on to other things, and it became a back-burner item.

A few months ago, a really bad pun popped into my head, quite uninvited. It somehow got connected to me wanting to finally redesign and start writing again. A vague concept was thought of. It seemed like a good idea. Then I moved on to other things, and it became a back-burner item. But I worked on it on and off, mostly off.

Then all of a sudden, I got off my ass, finalized a layout, wrote a stylesheet, completed HTML coding, learned Movable Type's arcane templating and variable system, chopped it all up, screamed at Abu a lot, screamed at Heaven a lot, screamed at Precious a lot, bitched about nearly every browser in its turn, crabbed about Photoshop's strangely hidden matting options, created bunches of background images, created them again because they had to be much bigger, then one more time because they really didn't have to be if I removed some unnecessary centering, and finally said, "Close enough." It took about three days. I work in bursts.

 

 

The Design

Anyone paying attention will recognize the look. I've always had a thing for the covers of the Vintage International editions of Nabokov's books, and unless otherwise noted, any page references will be to these. It seemed natural to use them as a basis for this project. And they weren't even designed by Chip Kidd. Go fig.

I hate tables. I hate making CSS work with tables even more. The code works. It (sort of) validates. It doesn't look absolutely identical in every browser for some obvious reasons, and a few others that are so frustratingly minor I can't be bothered to care for a while because I'm tired of looking at it. Whatever browser you use, though, it should be readable. If not, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If you're using any iteration of Netscape 4, I don't want to hear about it. The developers took the hint, trashed it, rewrote it from the ground up, and skipped a version number. You should consider that the next time a page looks broken.

 

 

The Structure

There are no timestamps. There is no chronology; it's not the point. Entries are given place in time – or more accurately, progress – by page references. You are welcome to follow along.

The groupings of information should be pretty self-explanatory. Outside links are on the left, separated by relevance to the project, and then other things/people I want to link. The list of books I'll be reading, and their order(subject to change) are on the right. The titles will become active as links when appropriate, and will point to the archives. There is no main archive. They get huge, and unattractive. Entries are archived by the books they belong to. This is all about the books, isn't it?