Glory – Vladimir Nabokov (1931)

Glory by Vladimir Nabokov, first published in Russian in 1932 as Podvig and translated into English in 1971, is an early yet luminous entry in Nabokov’s body of work. Written during his European exile, Glory reflects a deeply introspective and romantic portrayal of a young Russian émigré’s quest for purpose and transcendence. It belongs to Nabokov’s series of Russian-language novels crafted before his more widely known English-language masterpieces. This novel foreshadows many thematic obsessions that would haunt Nabokov’s later fiction, blending youthful ardor, aesthetic wonder, and existential yearning.

Plot Summary

In a shaded Crimean garden where the cypresses sliced the sky and the sea whispered secrets to sunburnt rocks, a boy named Martin Edelweiss learned to listen to the world’s silent invitations. The watercolor above his crib – a winding path disappearing into a forest – seemed more than ornament. It was prophecy. Born to a Swiss grandfather, a dermatologist father, and an Anglophile mother named Sofia, Martin’s early world shimmered with English biscuits, lavender soap, and illustrated legends where knights rode toward destiny. His father died when Martin was still a boy, and though the grief struck faintly, like distant thunder, it etched an inward scar of guilt and awakening.

Sofia raised him alone, a strong-willed, well-groomed woman with no taste for Russian sentimentality. She read to him in English and discouraged all things cloying or moralizing. Under her stern, scented gaze, Martin developed a discipline of feeling – a self-restraint that allowed his dreams to germinate in secret. As the political tides turned, they fled Crimea aboard a Canadian freighter. The sea rolled and the deck heaved, and Martin, seventeen and already susceptible to enchantments, watched the mist swallow his homeland. Among the refugees was Alla, a poetic woman whose ruby-lipped metaphors of silks and scars stirred something confused and urgent in him. He thought he loved her, or at least the way her scarf snapped in the wind.

They arrived in Europe and drifted through Athens and then into the fabric of émigré life, where damp pensions and crowded cafés hosted those exiled not only from a place, but from clarity. Sofia made practical arrangements. Martin stumbled into the uncertainties of manhood. He reached Cambridge, his mother’s academic ambition for him, and wandered through its wet courtyards and Latin lectures with only a lukewarm commitment to academia. He had inherited sensitivity but not talent, imagination but not direction. In the dormitories and libraries, amidst friends with names like Moon and Darwin, he remained an outsider – not for lack of charm, but for the thick veil of introspection that separated him from others. He lived his life like a page waiting to be inscribed.

His nostalgia grew richer than his present. He remembered the girl Lida – tanned, aloof, once slapped his hand for nothing – with aching precision. He remembered train windows and far-off lights. At Cambridge he met Sonia, dark-eyed and enigmatic, who moved through social rooms with a somber allure. She let him orbit, even encouraged his quiet longing, but withheld the intimacy he hungered for. Their conversations, often elliptical, danced around feeling rather than entering it. She played games. He played martyr.

He wrote letters that never arrived, took long walks in the fog, and let his mind wander to Zoorland – a forbidden region beyond the Soviet border. Somewhere in the haze of his Cambridge days, a singular idea began to crystallize. Glory. Not the public, medal-pinned kind, but a personal, luminous act – something useless, valiant, unrecorded. An exploit without spectators. He longed to disappear into the heart of something dangerous and beautiful, to enter the picture above the crib.

When he returned to the continent during breaks, Martin navigated his mother’s world of subtle expectations and discreet worry. She sensed his growing abstraction but mistook it for youthful melancholy. His former friends had scattered, some lost to wars, others dissolved into marriage or insignificance. Even Sonia drifted from his life, like perfume left on a scarf forgotten in a train car. He said little of what he felt, conserving his inward fire for the unnamed journey ahead.

The émigré community buzzed with rumors of heroism and espionage. Names like Zilanov and Gruzinov appeared at gatherings, toasting the motherland from afar and speaking of resistance as though it were a chess game played across a vast, cracked board. Martin watched them without judgment but did not align himself with their politics. His was not a cause. It was an instinct.

And so, without fanfare, Martin made preparations. He left his mother a careful farewell, forged documents, and traveled toward the border with absurd thoroughness. He rehearsed failure and death with stoic clarity. The absurdity of it – a Cambridge student crossing into a closed country on foot, alone, unarmed, with no plan – did not escape him. But it thrilled him. Every step into the shadows of Zoorland, where pine trees stood like sentries and snow glowed faintly in the dark, felt like returning home. Not to a place, but to an idea.

There were checkpoints that never materialized. Villages he passed through without notice. Nights when he slept among rocks or under the dripping eaves of barns, unseen by soldiers and unbothered by dogs. He moved through the land like a ghost whose name had been scratched off every record. His success, if it could be called that, was the vanishing itself.

What happened next became no one’s business but his own. He may have crossed deeper, or turned back, or fallen. There was no explosion, no letter to the editor, no echo. Only a lingering image – a wet day, a bird settling on a wicket, a gray field inhaling the fog of dawn. Glory, like a remembered kiss in a dream, left no trace but the warmth it once gave.

Main Characters

• Martin Edelweiss – The central figure of the novel, Martin is a young Russian émigré of Swiss descent. Idealistic, introspective, and achingly romantic, Martin lives in a world where fantasy and reality coalesce. His pursuit of a “glorious” destiny—an undefined heroic deed—is rooted in both aesthetic longing and spiritual restlessness. His arc is one of self-exploration, from nostalgic recollections of his childhood to an enigmatic end that blurs the boundary between martyrdom and absurdity.

• Sofia (Martin’s Mother) – A headstrong and cultured woman, Sofia shapes Martin’s early intellectual and emotional world. Anglophilic and rational, she embodies a blend of stern affection and emotional restraint. Her fierce maternal attachment and disciplined demeanor influence Martin’s notions of femininity and moral integrity.

• Sonia – A moody, enigmatic, and quietly seductive presence in Martin’s life, Sonia is a fellow émigré and object of Martin’s romantic yearnings. Her aloofness and flirtations contribute to Martin’s emotional turmoil and deepen his need for personal valor and fulfillment.

• Alla – A flirtatious and poetic woman, Alla is a fellow traveler who intersects briefly but memorably with Martin’s journey. She embodies the decadent, sensual allure of a lost aristocratic world. Her exaggerated romanticism contrasts with Martin’s more sincere and spiritual ideals.

Theme

• The Quest for Glory and Meaning: The central theme of the novel is Martin’s relentless search for “glory”—an elusive and abstract ideal. This quest, devoid of clear political or artistic motivation, becomes a metaphysical journey. It symbolizes a yearning for transcendence, personal authenticity, and a noble identity amid the chaos of exile and modernity.

• Exile and Displacement: Set against the backdrop of Russian émigré life in Europe, Glory explores the psychological and cultural fragmentation of displaced individuals. Martin’s journey from Crimea to Cambridge to the fictional land of Zoorland reflects the loss of homeland and the struggle to anchor oneself in a fractured world.

• Memory and Imagination: Nabokov constructs Martin’s psyche through interwoven layers of memory and imagination. Vivid recollections of childhood, dreams of knightly adventures, and lyrical impressions of nature emphasize the subjective, often illusory, foundation of Martin’s identity and experience.

• Romanticism vs. Reality: The tension between romantic idealism and mundane reality permeates the narrative. Martin’s encounters—with Sonia, Alla, and various émigrés—highlight the dissonance between internal fantasy and external action. His final act—ambiguous and possibly quixotic—underscores this divide.

Writing Style and Tone

Nabokov’s writing in Glory is characteristically rich, lyrical, and meticulous. He imbues the narrative with a lush, painterly precision, capturing fleeting sensations and inner reveries with dazzling fluency. His prose, replete with synesthetic detail and playful metaphors, mirrors Martin’s heightened sensitivity and inward focus. Descriptions often stretch into poetic rapture, whether recalling a Crimean coastline or a boyhood train ride, demonstrating Nabokov’s obsessive attention to texture, color, and memory.

Narrative structure in Glory is both intimate and layered, often nonlinear, reflecting the internal flow of Martin’s consciousness. The tone vacillates between wistful nostalgia and ironic detachment. Nabokov navigates Martin’s journey with a quiet compassion, yet retains a knowing, wry voice that hints at the absurdity and fragility of youthful dreams. The juxtaposition of dreamlike sequences with mundane émigré life creates an elegiac tone, deeply infused with longing and quiet despair. The novel ends with characteristic ambiguity—elevating a mundane fate into something mythic and unknowable.