The Feat

"The Feat" (1931), the fourth novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in Berlin, offers a new perspective on the classic "coming-of-age novel." Nabokov endows his touching hero with some of his own traits and circumstances, while at the same time making him a person far removed from literature. A Cambridge graduate with the floral name Martyn Edelweiss, a Russian émigré, dreams of accomplishing something exceptional. He travels across Europe, vainly searching for a place to apply his abilities. The vague aspiration that never leaves him gradually takes shape, and he resolves to perform a feat similar to the mythical descent into Hades — to cross the boundary of the possible and return to his own Russian childhood.