Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov

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Nabokov's dream diary, published for the first time--and placed in biographical and literary context On October 14th, 1964, Vladimir Nabokov, a lifelong insomniac, began a curious experiment. Over the next eighty days, immediately upon waking, he wrote down his dreams, following the instructions he found in An Experiment with Time by the British philosopher John Dunne. The purpose was to test the theory that time may go in reverse, so that, paradoxically, a later event may generate an earlier dream. The result--published here for the first time--is a fascinating diary in which Nabokov recorded sixty-four dreams (and subsequent daytime episodes) on 118 index cards, which afford a rare glimpse of the artist at his most private. More than an odd biographical footnote, the experiment grew out of Nabokov's passionate interest in the mystery of time, which influenced many of his novels, including the late masterpiece Ada. Insomniac Dreams, edited by leading Nabokov authority Gennady Barabtarlo, presents the text of Nabokov's dream experiment, illustrated with a selection of his original index cards, and provides rich annotations and analysis that put them in the context of his life and writings. The book also includes previously unpublished records of Nabokov's dreams from his letters and notebooks and shows important connections between his fiction and private writings on dreams and time.

Reviews

"One of The Guardians Best Books of 2017"
"A meditation on the ways our dreams unmoor us--from ourselves, from one another, from the most basic sense of duration."---Dan Piepenbring, The New Yorker
"This is a celebratory enterprise, an ideal present for readers who are already fans. . . . Barabtarlo has a masterly command of Nabokovs life and work."---Eric Naiman, Times Literary Supplement
"[D]ream notes are at the heart of Insomniac Dreams, and are surrounded by helpful and intriguing background material."---Michael Wood, New York Review of Books
"Nabokov's actual accounts of his dreams . . . are fantastic, and show in raw form the wit, facility, and inherent discipline of language easily recognizable as Nabokovs handiwork. The authors fans will be fascinated by the obsessions, fears, preoccupations, and minutiae revealed without filter or guard. . . . The note cards alone . . . will fortify Nabokov scholars for years to come." * Publishers Weekly *
"Utterly fascinating."---William Boyd, The Guardian
"Handsomely designed . . . [t]his is a looping, chronologically complicated book full of the kind of sleep-deprived, iridescently edged complexity that likes to gather around Vladimir Nabokovs work."---Nicholson Baker, New Republic
"[T]he volumes foray into the subconscious is a suggestive . . . addition to the canon of Nabokoviana."---Francisco Unger, Essays in Criticism
"For the casual reader drawn to big ideas, Insomniac Dreams can be as challenging as trying to reconstruct a dinosaur skeleton from a few simple bones. But it's a fascinating read for all the questions it raisessome of which the world's best minds have been tackling for centuries."---James Plath, PopMatters
"Insomniac Dreams voices [Nabokovs] ongoing translation, rereading and appraisal of his past selves during his lifetime, as well as his assured awareness of the readers voracious desire to sift through the detritus of his words and thoughts."---Melissa Purkiss, Oxonian Review

Author Bio

Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1899. After studying French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, he launched his literary career in Berlin and Paris, writing innovative fiction, verse, and drama in his native Russian. In 1940 he moved to America, where he wrote some of his greatest works, including Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962). He died in Switzerland in 1977. Gennady Barabtarlo is professor of literature at the University of Missouri and the author of a number of books on Nabokov. Barabtarlo has also translated into Russian three of Nabokov's novels and all of his English-language short stories. He lives in Columbia, Missouri.