Vladimir Nabokov was, in his own words, "an American writer born in Russia and educated in England, where I studied French literature before spending 15 years in Germany." His life was, in fact, a spiral of migrations, and his passport was his art. When he died last week at 78, of a viral infection, at a hospital near his home in Montreux, Switzerland, that art was widely considered to include some of the best novels of the 20th century. There are three masterpieces: The Gift, written in Russian and first published in 1936, Lolita (1955), and Pale Fire (1962). In addition...
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