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.
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…
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”…
Jorge Borges Collected Fictions audiobook excerpt - The Aleph
Some reviewers claim Jorge Luis Borges, by inventing the caleidoscopical phenomenon “the aleph”, envisioned the internet. I would say he envisioned Tumblr. Take a listen and “see” for yourself. From Collected Fictions. Performed by George Guidall.
