Despair by Vladimir Nabokov Summary

Despair by Vladimir Nabokov follows Hermann Karlovich, a Russian chocolate factory owner who believes he's discovered his exact doppelgänger in a homeless man named Felix. Hermann murders Felix to collect his own life insurance, considering it a "perfect crime" and work of art. The shocking twist reveals there's no resemblance between them—Hermann is delusional, and his supposedly flawless murder unravels spectacularly as police close in on him in France.

Despair is ideal for readers who appreciate unreliable narrators, literary experimentation, and psychological complexity. Fans of Nabokov's Lolita will recognize similar narrative techniques, while those interested in crime fiction parodies, modernist literature, or explorations of artistic delusion will find it compelling. It's particularly suited for readers who enjoy novels that challenge genre conventions and examine the nature of creativity and self-deception.

Despair is absolutely worth reading for its masterful use of unreliable narration and darkly comedic examination of artistic vanity. Nabokov crafts an early example of the "anti-mystery" genre, deconstructing crime fiction while delivering brilliant prose and psychological insight. Though less famous than Lolita, it showcases Nabokov's signature style—intricate wordplay, thematic doubling, and a protagonist whose self-delusion becomes both horrifying and grotesquely entertaining.

Hermann Karlovich narrates Despair as a novel-length self-justification, making him one of literature's most unreliable narrators. He overestimates his intelligence, misinterprets events around him, and remains oblivious to his wife's affair with her cousin Ardalion—even walking in on them naked. Hermann insists Felix is his perfect double when no resemblance exists, demonstrating how readers can never trust his version of reality throughout the narrative.

The doppelgänger theme in Despair explores false doubles and creative obsession. Hermann believes Felix is his identical twin, but this resemblance exists only in Hermann's delusional mind. Nabokov uses this "false double" motif to examine how artistic vision can distort reality. The tragic irony is that Hermann's entire murder plot depends on a similarity that doesn't exist—newspapers don't even mention any resemblance between victim and killer.

Despair directly mocks Dostoevsky, whom Hermann calls "old Dusty," author of "Crime and Slime." Nabokov parodies Dostoevsky's double motif, abnormal psychology, and dramatic scandal scenes. He replaces the Dostoevskean model of novelist-as-prophet with novelist-as-consummate-artist, creating Hermann as a false artist behind whom Nabokov stands as the true craftsman. This literary rivalry shapes the novel's entire satirical structure.

Hermann's "perfect crime" in Despair reveals how artistic vanity corrupts judgment and disconnects creators from reality. He views Felix's murder as creative masterwork rather than criminal scheme, embodying what critic Julian Connolly calls "creative solipsism." Hermann believes himself superior to everyone, including detective fiction writers, yet leaves Felix's name-bearing walking stick in the car—an amateur mistake exposing his delusion about possessing artistic genius.

Despair functions as an early "anti-mystery" that inverts crime fiction conventions by applying cruel realism to sentimental genre logic. Rather than solving a murder, readers watch Hermann plan and commit one—only to see it solved through plain police work, not Sherlock Holmes brilliance. Nabokov strips away the "gamified" nature of mystery novels, presenting murder's banal reality instead of puzzle-solving entertainment, fundamentally rejecting the genre's traditional structure.

Hermann's relationship with Lydia exposes his profound self-deception and willful blindness. Throughout Despair, it's heavily hinted that Lydia conducts an affair with her cousin Ardalion, yet Hermann insists she loves him deeply. When he walks in on them naked together, he remains completely oblivious—perhaps deliberately so. This pattern of denial mirrors his delusion about Felix's resemblance, revealing Hermann's fundamental inability to perceive reality.

Despair and Lolita both feature unreliable first-person narrators who are "neurotic scoundrels," but Nabokov distinguished them sharply. He wrote that "Hermann and Humbert are alike only in the sense that two dragons painted by the same artist at different periods resemble each other." While Humbert possesses some redeeming complexity, Nabokov stated that "Hell shall never parole Hermann," suggesting Hermann represents pure artistic solipsism without Humbert's tortured self-awareness.

While Despair demonstrates Nabokov's technical brilliance, some critics find Hermann's self-absorbed narration exhausting and his character less sympathetically complex than Humbert Humbert. The novel's dense literary parodies and metatextual games—mocking Dostoevsky, psychoanalysis, and Marxism—can feel overly intellectual. Additionally, readers expecting traditional mystery satisfaction may find the anti-genre approach frustrating, as the "perfect crime" collapses through banal police work rather than clever detection.

Despair is considered postmodern because it engages in metatextual polemics and intertextual deconstruction ahead of its time. Though Nabokov aimed to create modernist art, the novel uses audience familiarity with crime fiction conventions as a "weapon to twist and recontextualise" genre assumptions. Its self-reflexive narrative, genre parody, and rejection of straightforward meaning align with postmodern techniques that wouldn't be formally named for decades, making it deceptively postmodern despite its publication date.