Otchayanie (1936)

In Despair, Hermann tells his story with the pride of a man who thinks he understands both art and other people. His confidence makes the reader examine what he sees, what he assumes, and the audience he imagines he can impress. Nabokov gives self-deception a fiercely comic voice. Choose the author's revised English version, published in 1966; the Russian novel first appeared as a book in 1936.