Jansy is quite right to call attention to the short stories.  Beyond the obvious “Vane Sisters” there is also “Details of a Sunset,” a story that needs to be solved like a chess problem.  I won’t give away the key move here but it does involve consciousness after death.

 

 

 

Short-stories may be helpful. There’s the wonderful  one about a dead son, his grieving father and a butterfly ( “A Christmas Story”), another about a suicide ( “A Matter of Chance”) and another about an attempt to recover a lost wife by retracing their steps while she was still living, which I always remember in relation to “Transparent Things” (“The Return of Chorb”).

In “Strong Opinions,” (I’m not sure) we read why Nabokov opposed capital punishment.

 

 

 

 

Dear Brian,

I don't know your background... maybe you are a nabokovian, in that case, excuse my maybe obvious ideas (i'm just an amateur-reader) and skip what follows.   If not, the following might be interesting to you.

First of all, you should read the "Nabokovs Otherworld" by V.E. Alexandrov... based on Vera's quote that the main theme in Nabokov is the Otherworld (an idea contested in recent criticism)……………

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