Vladimir Nabokov writes poetry in his prose and The Gift is as good as an example as any. His deep attachment to poetry is pretty evident and recurring in this one. This book is about an immigrated Russian author who moves to Berlin and dreams of writing a book that will set his place in this world. Right from the very beginning, the readers realise that the book they are reading is (to quite an extent) the very book our protagonist envisions as his literary offspring. With such a setting, the book explores various themes of alienation and nostalgia for one's homeland while being a foreigner in some place which never truly registers itself as one's own. More so prominent and personal is the theme of the challenges of a creative process like writing. The responsibility to create something which leaves an impression of significance and evocation of appreciation becomes a moral responsibility of any author. Achieving that in one's lifetime is the fortune of few and pursuit of so many. Unlike other fields like science, an author does not get the luxury to stand on the shoulder of giants in my opinion. Instead, to ever get noticed and remembered in the landscape of literature, one has to scale mountains of creation, originality and beauty, to the orders of magnitude that has already been witnessed and ever-present in our history: works under whose glorious shadows we bask and the greats whom we revere. It also coherently connects with a love for Russian fatherland that the protagonist declares time and again, which brings this dually laded expression. The first being related to literature where he revels in the prodigies that Russia has produced, like Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevski - expressing this feeling of insignificance in front of the giants whom one admires and feels challenged by at the same time. The plot consists of a significant portion dedicated to the history of one such particular literary critic that the protagonists makes an object of his literary pursuit to produce. The second expression being of feeling a misfit in a place which is literally far and excluded from the place which cultivates and admires the beauty in life that one values. This particular portion relevant to Russian history would have been amazing for somebody familiar with it; and since unfortunately, my literary experience and historical knowledge has been very limited in this respect, I unfortunately found this part the most trying.

On the other hand, there is one part which I absolutely enjoyed and appreciated for Nabokov’s vivid imagination and mastery of expression. As a major component of this story, the protagonist often talks about his famous father, who was a naturalist by profession and whose speciality and scientific contribution was in the research and classification of butterflies (Lepidoptera is the scientific term for them that I came to know thanks to this). Like any child with a fortunate, wonderful childhood, one comes to admire one's parents and the protagonist's infatuation with his father resulted for his love for him and his profession, coupling both these loves in an inseparable manner. While he did not come to follow his father's footsteps, his memories always beckoned him to the times spent in his father with butterflies. The story also deals with protagonist's dream of writing a perfect book about his father which would be worthy and respectable enough of the fame and success he garnered as a naturalist. It also inherently relates to the internal responsibility that children face to live up to their parents, even when they move out of their lives and beyond the umbra of their expectations. Nabokov's lyricism in prosaic form is a delight delivered first-hand through his words. Although I don't feel equipped with the vein that pulsates with poetry, I could not fail to appreciate the beauty that lies with the expression, as much as with the idea, in the words written here.