Nabokov general

Can we discuss the works of this man? I mean other than Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada. I should re-read Lolita at some point since I read it a long time ago. Also, Ada was probably the single book that filled me with the greatest and sweetest joy. A blissful experience.
I just bought Pale Fire and will read it pretty soon. But that one is also kind of a meme-book here so I'd like to strive the discussion toward all his other works, which are lesser known, and get some input and reccs from fellow Veeky Forums friends.
I'm considering reading Pnin next. Which of his other novels are standouts?
Can you say there's an 'early' Nabokov and a 'late' Nabokov?
Is the early stuff as good as his later work?
DId the switch from Russian to English have an impact in his style or themes?

"Early" Nabokov is typically anything that was originally in Russian.

I've only read Lolita, Pale Fire and Laughter in the Dark. Laughter in the Dark is sortof a proto-Lolita set in Europe. It's not exactly the same but the general idea of an older man being ruined through his relationship with a younger woman is there. Though she's a lot more complicit in the process and isn't quite as young.

You answered your own question about early and late. Scholars tend to divide his work by Russian works and when he began writing in English.
With Nabokov we have an interesting opportunity to look at how his work changed from when he wrote in Russian to English because he and his son translated a large portion of his Russian work, so I feel that we get more of his intent for the prose in the translation than is usual with other translations. I'd say stylistically, yes, he changed a lot. Just find a copy of Glory or one of his other early novels, you'll see the difference. I hate spoonfeeding opinions on here, so I won't tell you if it's "better" as his later work.
As far as standouts, check out An Invitation to a Beheading.

I'm currently about halfway through Invitation to a Beheading and it is just basically Kafka. I'm amazed Nabokov denies having read Kafka before writing it, although, who knows, authors are very proud about influences, so he may've lied. It's a very good work and surprisingly readable, I could've finished it in a day if I wanted to and probably will finish it today, but I think he either cribbed it from Kafka or Kafka was such a genius he intuited the essence of totalitarianism so well (perhaps from living with such an overbearing father and working in bureaucracy?) that he exactly wrote what other writers would write only later when writing about totalitarianism (which Nabokov claimed to have been doing with Beheading, independently of Kafka), which is a fucking mouthful, whew.

I'm inclined to believe that this is testament to Kafka's genius rather than Nabokov's heavy influence by him here.

I've read Pnin, too. Didn't much like it, really. A pointless letdown compared to Lolita, which he wrote right before. Pnin is the opposite, in a sense, of H.Humbert since Pnin is such a good-natured person, which actually makes Pnin and his story very yawnworthy compared to the evil of H.H.

Anyway, that's my pointless post, hope you liked it.

Of the books not mentioned yet, I've read the novella "the eye". It was interesting and funny. A quick read room. I won't talk about the plot because that would give it away.

>or Kafka was such a genius he intuited the essence of totalitarianism so well that he exactly wrote what other writers would write only later when writing about totalitarianism

I haven't read An Invitation to a Beheading but this is pretty accurate. Ismail Kadare's short story The Blinding Order is another one. Out of context it would seem heavily Kafka influenced, but it was written in Albania under the Hohxa regime and is really just a straightforward allegory of ordinary Albanian life at the time.

or Cell Block Five by Fadhil Al-Azzawi, which is based on the author's time in prison in 60s Iraq, and is very Kafka in its basic plotline - a man is imprisoned by accident and his release is delayed indefinitely by senseless buerocratic systems - and some of its atmosphere.

Exactly, Kafka tapped into something primal and brilliant while not even living (seemingly) under a totalitarian government, the dude fucking intuited it, that's why he was a genius IMO.

Anyway, Beheading is a great work and Nabby's favorite, so you should check it out, OP.

>other than Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada
Only other one I read was The Eye, and it is my favorite one.
Incidentally it's the only one out of those four not originally written in English.

Despair is good. Go read that one.

>other than Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada.
Lol, that's exactly 3 that I read.

>Lolita,
Meme book, nothing good about it, except fun language. As I understand Americans are supposed to be appalled by the character but secretly love him. Yuk.

>Pale Fire
Great poem. Adding to the fact that the tradition to rhyme and have a rhytm to a poem was extinct in English by the time it was written speaks volume.

>Ada
I like the pervesion in this novel much better but I have to admit I skipped a lot in the second half of the book.

English is not my first language. Please, correct me where my syntax is wrong.