Lolita audiobook excerpt - She Had Absolutely Nowhere Else To Go (performed by Jeremy Irons)
This is what happens right before Humbert Humbert and Lolita begin their “extensive travels all over the States”.
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov audiobook excerpt - Signs And Symbols - Referential Mania (narrated by Arthur Morey)
The short story Signs and Symbols by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and first published, May 15, 1948 in The New Yorker (as Symbols And Signs), then in Nabokov’s Dozen (1958: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York) and again in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1996), deals with a suicidal boy locked away in an asylum and his parents who visit him. The son is unnamed, suicidal, and suffering from “referential mania”. Listen to the above audiobook excerpt to discover Nabokov’s definition of this mental derangement.
Beyond Good And Evil audiobook excerpt - A More Complete Beast (narrated by Steven Crossley)
The truth is hard—as Nietzsche’s truth on the topic of those who rule society and those who serve it has always been. For those who can endure this harsh climate for the soul, this a-moral altitude—in other words, who’s a Hyperborean—listen to the above audiobook excerpt from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good And Evil.
David Copperfield audiobook excerpt - The Word Was Not Spoken (narrated by Patrick Tull)
When David returns to his home made strange by his mother’s marriage to Mr. Murdstone, the narrator goes into this long speculation about his entire life might have been different and better if Mr. Murdstone had offered him one word of encouragement at this key moment. This seems to be the key tragedy of this novel: there are a thousand moments when a single word can make all the difference in improving (or ruining) that kid’s life. But you can only know in retrospect, looking back on the event, what would have made things better.
The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight audiobook excerpt - Think About Things (performed by Luke Daniels)
To compose a biography on the writer Sebastian Knight, Victor, younger half-brother of Knight, needs to interview a friend from Knight’s days as a Cambridge student. While sipping tea with this kind and humorous man, listening to his Cambridge anecdotes, Victor imagines his half-brother cycling through the English country side…
Lolita audiobook excerpt - A Double Vanilla with Hot Fudge (performed by Jeremy Irons)
“A modern child, an avid reader of movie magazines, an expert in dream-slow close-ups, might not think it too strange, I guessed, if a handsome, intensely virile grown-up friend”… if a handsome, intensly virile grown-up friend does what? Listen to the above audiobook excerpt to discover what Humbert Humbert is up to while Lolita bends her “brown curls” over his desk.
The Catcher in the Rye audiobook excerpt - What I’d Like To Be (performed by Ray Hagen)
Holden Caulfield explains his little sister “old Phoebe” he wants to be “the catcher in the rye and all”.
Glory audiobook excerpt - Sofia (performed by Luke Daniels)
Listen to the above audiobook excerpt to meet the young version of Martin Edelweiss’ mother Sofia. From Nabokov’s fifth Russian-language novel Glory, about the coming of age of Martin, the “kindest, uprightest, and most touching of all my young men” according to the master himself.
The Garden of Forking Paths audiobook excerpt - A Maze Of Mazes
Once upon a time a Chinese man devoted thirteen years of his life trying to construct a labyrinth in which all men would lose their way. The maze was never found, yet we get a glimpse of it as it is somehow “imposed upon reality” by the narrator of the above audiobook excerpt (performed by George Guidall), a “connaisseur of mazes” while he meditates on “the maze of mazes” his deceased great grandfather once envisioned.
The Great Gatsby audiobook excerpt - I’m Gatsby (performed by Frank Muller)
Somewhere in the heart of the Roaring Twenties, on a summer evening, Nick Carraway is enjoying himself at Jay Gatsby’s garden party with “two finger bowls of champagne”, talking for a moment with “a man” about “wet, grey little villages in France” who then invites him for a trip on his new hydroplane and then BOOM—the identity of that “new aquintance” is suddenly revealed…
The Rules Of Attraction audiobook excerpt - She Was A Nice Girl (performed by Jonathan Davis)
Somewhere in the middle of the 80s. Liberal arts college, New Hampshire. ”Thirsty Thursday”—a party. Listen to the above audiobook excerpt to witness Paul picking up a “light-haired Swedish chick from Connecticut” there, ending up not having sex with her and stealing her copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
Pale Fire audiobook excerpt - Dear Jesus, Do Something (performed by Marc Vietor)
Listen to the above audiobook excerpt to visit the 1959 campus of Wordsmith’s College, situated near New Wye, and referred to as “Arcady” by Charles Kinbote, the narrator in Pale Fire. Slide into this self-contained world wrapped in “the hint of a haze” and take a stroll down “the famous avenues of all the trees mentioned by Shakespeare”, to the “poplar curtained” football field, “deserted on summer days except for a dreamy-eyed youngster.”
Underworld audiobook excerpt - Jump (performed by Richard Poe)
It’s 3 october 1951, we’re in Upper Manhattan, at The Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants. A group of “black kids and white kids up from the subways or off the local Harlem streets, lean shadows, bandidos, fifteen in all,” plans to jump the turnstiles to get in and see the pennant. “And according to topical legend maybe four will get through for every one that’s caught”…
