Bend sinister

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What Hacker News says

• leephillips · Aug 18, 2021 · Recommends

  …plots of Nabokov’s novels. There is no general agreement about the actual plot of Transparent Things, and a lot of argument over what really happened in Lolita. In many of his works, such as Pale Fire and Bend Sinister, you have to think a lot just to apprehend what the plot was, and when you get it, it is as if the author has emerged at the end to consume the story from the beginning, in a glorious spiral of invention.…

  on “The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?” ↗
• V-2 · Sep 12, 2015 · Recommends

  Obviously not s-f as such, but - quite a few novels by Nabokov. "The Luzhin Defence" (aka "The Defense"), "The Eye", "Bend Sinister", "Transparent Things" - all very immersing, and posing the question of what's the true reality, its underpinnings and seams. Challenging reads for sure, every detail matters. Some might recommend Pynchon…

  on “Ask HN: Books that altered your view of reality” ↗
• sevagh · May 10, 2018 · Recommends

  I recently read Despair and Bend Sinister, both by Vladimir Nabokov, and enjoyed both greatly. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest also deals with existentialism.

  on ““The Idiot” Savant: On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Idiot” ↗
• frlnBorg · May 11, 2018 · Recommends

  Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Metamorphosis by Kafka. Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov.

  on “Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?” ↗
• sp1nningaway · May 18, 2026 · Recommends

  I find this kind of research and political science to be ill-equipped for explaining how people and society work. Fiction like Nabokov's Bend Sinister is able to get much closer to the truth of totalitarianism because it isn't shackled by having to present a thin veneer of data and science, and is more clearly influenced by the author's experiences…

  on “Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.” ↗
• Fezzik · Dec 7, 2016 · Recommends

  I highly recommend reading some of his other books if you enjoyed Lolita - I find them to be more complicated (in a good way) and also written magnificently. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, Despair, 'Ada, or Ardor', Pale Fire, and Transparent Things are all personal favorites. But all of his novels are absurdly good. His short story 'Beneficence' may be may favorite piece of writing ever.…

  on “Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson’s Epic Literary Feud” ↗
• HillRat · Dec 26, 2015 · Mentions

  While I actually sympathize with the author's intent, Nabakov is not the best of literary targets, as even his most sympathetic characters form a cabinet of grotesqueries -- vide the protagonists of Pnin, Bend Sinister, or Pale Fire -- and Humbert Humbert is most assuredly a monster. On the other hand, the sexual politics of Nabakov are worthy of interrogation; he is a literary giant, but hardly immune from criticism,…

  on “‘His Joy, His Life’: Nabokov and his wife” ↗
• dang · Mar 27, 2019 · Mentions

  …unusual, sort of phantasmagoric—a bit like Kafka at his most dreamlike. If you like movies that play games with "what is real", it's in that spirit. The first two English novels Sebastian Knight and Bend Sinister are very much in the style of his Russian novels. But the language of the Russian novels is lush rather than brittle, and this comes out even in the translations. My impression of Nabokov is that he…

  on “By the book: reflections on an Indian childhood reading Soviet hardbacks” ↗