Vladimir Nabokov
The state has been recently taken over and is being run by the tyrannical and philistine â€˜Average Manâ€™ party. Under the slogans of equality and happiness for all, it has done away with individualism and freedom of thought. Only John Krug, a brilliant philosopher, stands up to the regime. His antagonist, the leader of the new party, is his old school enemy, Paduk â€“ known as the â€˜Toadâ€™. Grieving over his wifeâ€™s recent death, Krug is at first dismissive of Padukâ€™s activities and sees no threat in them. But the sinister machine which Paduk has set in motion may prove stronger than the individual, stronger even than the grotesque â€˜Toadâ€™ himself. ,The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, ,Bend Sinister, is a modern classic.Â Â While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Â Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man.Â Â In a folly of bureaucratic bungling and ineptitude, the government attempts to co-opt Krug's support in order to validate the new regime.
Fiction,Classics,Cultural,Russia,Science Fiction,Dystopia,Literature,Novels,Literature,Russian Literature,Literary Fiction,Literature,American,Literature,20th Century
Bend Sinister