The Defense, or Luzhin Defense

[bazarov]

For those who read it, does it have anything with Luzhin from Crime and Punishment or it is just a coincidence?

[chasestalling]

just what sort of character is dostoevsky's luzhin?

luzhin, nabokov's chess player, is a morose, reticent, physically unappealing character whose name is a play on illusion, luzhin, illusion, a reference to his mental acuity on the chessboard.

[bazarov]

Egocentric jerk.
Thank you!

[chasestalling]

well, someone's forgotten to take his medication.

[bazarov]

Not you, Luzhin from C&P :lol:

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Nabokov does make a constant habit of mocking 'Dusty' (Dostoevskii) in his works-I don't know about 'The Defense' as I have not read it (yet!), but 'Despair' is a classic example of him mocking Dusty, using Dusty's penchant for banal sensitive murderers against him in the case of Hermann Hermann, he also refers to C&P as 'Crime and Pun' when imagining his crime against other literary murderers

'Humbert Humbert' is another anti-Dosoevskii character, he keeps a diary for example, ala the Underground Man, and his 'count on a murderer for a fancy prose style' is kind of ironic in relation to 'Crime and Punishment' since, in original Russian, the prose style is supposed to be poor