Laughter in The Dark (novel)

Laughter In The Dark (novel)

Laughter in the Dark (Original Russian title: Камера обскура, Kamera obskura) is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov and serialised in Sovremennye Zapiski released in 1932.

The first English translation, Camera Obscura, was made by Winifred Roy and published in London in 1936 by Johnathan Long, the paperback imprint of Hutchinson Publishing, with the author credited as Vladimir Nabokoff-Sirin. Nabokov was so displeased by the translation's quality that he undertook his own translation, which was published in 1938 under the now common name, Laughter in the Dark. It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that he was not fond of the book, yet in fact it was based on very personal breakthroughs in his life.

The book deals with the affection of a middle-aged man for a very young woman, resulting in a mutually parasitic relationship. In 1955, Nabokov used this theme again with Lolita to a much differently developed effect. He again used this theme to the most extreme in Ada.

The books he produced in 1932-34, Glory, Laughter in The Dark, and Despair, were all very closely related, as they were reflective of the happenings in Nabokov's life. And although Ada, Pnin, and especially Pale Fire, are showcases to his genius, Laughter In the Dark stands as part of a triad of development, showing that it was not about what Nabokov was writing, but about what he was doing to the reader and himself. Pnin is actually a revisited form of the same style later on in his career.