DESPAIR

Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his ownpersonality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. Butthen a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals afrightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. With shattering immediacy,Nabokov takes us into a deranged world, one full of an impudent, startlinghumour, dominated by the egotistical and scornful figure of a murderer whothinks himself an artist.