Bend Sinister
Nabokov`s first novel written in America was inspired by his vision of the madness of totalitarianism, which he called idiotic and despicable. Adam Krug, an internationally celebrated professor of philosophy, is asked by an old schoolmate, now a power-mad dictator, to lend his support to his brutal regime. Krug refuses. His friends are imprisoned, and his son is sent to the Institute for Abnormal Children where he is experimented upon. Krug finally cracks, goes crazy, is shot attempting to attack the dictator--and is transformed into a moth. Nabokov said of the novel in 1946: I propose to portray in this book certain subtle achievements of the mind in modern times against a dull-red background of nightmare oppression and persecution. The scholar, the poet, the scientist and the child--these are the victims and witnesses of a world that goes wrong....

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