"Overall, Shvabrin has written an extremely thorough, learned, and ‘phenomenally useful’ book. While it perhaps does not entirely lift the ‘veil of mystery’ surrounding Nabokov’s baffling conversion to literalism and polemic dismissal of any alternate approach, it greatly advances our understanding of Nabokov’s evolution as a translator and highlights to what extent translations formed an integral and crucial part of his life and work."
Adrian Wanner, Pennsylvania State University, Slavic Review
"This book is a very useful addition to the already extensive list of considerations of Nabokov’s artistic interactions with his two major languages. One of Stanislav Shvabrin’s goals is to trace the logic of Nabokov’s development as a translator and the importance of Nabokov’s investment in translation for an understanding of his artistic history. The chapters on the early Sirin are particularly illuminating in their detailed considerations of aspects of his artistic evolution, especially his juvenilia."
Elizabeth K. Beaujour, Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, The Russian Review, Vol 79, July 2020
"When one reads Shvabrin’s monograph, it is clear that he is a great admirer of Nabokov in addition to being one of the most knowledgeable scholars on the smallest details of Nabokov’s life and art, all while never shying away from showing Nabokov’s contradictions, sometimes to redeem them, sometimes not."
Julie Loison-Charles, Université de Lille, Linguistica Antverpiensia
"Between Rhyme and Reason is a substantial and substantive piece of research. Stanislav Shvabrin offers a comprehensive examination of Nabokov’s translation practice from his youth until near the end of his life, including both poetry and prose works. In looking at specific texts, Shvabrin not only describes in detail the individual technical and artistic features of the work under analysis but also reveals how Nabokov’s engagement with a given text may have influenced the development of his own art."
Julian Connolly, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia
"Although much attention has always been given to Nabokov’s infamous Onegin translation and commentary, no one has previously thought of approaching Nabokov’s translation work as a coherent and revealing thread running the full length of his creative life, a perspective which enlightens our understanding of not only the Onegin project itself but the very beginning, evolution, and realization of Nabokov’s artistic vision and practice. Shvabrin’s study provides this crucial yet missing element, and more."
Stephen Blackwell, Russian Program, Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tennessee, Knoxville