Thursday, 11 September 2008

Dimonstein/Dimondstein & Nabokov

This is just a quickie, to show a couple of lovely covers I came across while researching the Romek Marber posts. They are for two of my favourite Vladimir Nabokov novels (Laughter in the Dark being a particular favourite: uxorious husband goes blind, and his movie starlet wife secretly moves her lover into their house; lover then proceeds to subtly torment husband). Click for bigger versions.




These woodcut illustrations are credited to a Morton Dimonstein. About him I could find no information, but it appears that he was also known as Morton Dimondstein, a painter and sculptor who died in Los Angeles in 2000: an obituary is online here, while a small gallery of his work is available online here. From the latter, here is his 'Self Portrait of the artist sculpting in his studio, with sculptures in foreground'.

at

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous14 September 2008 at 01:59

    Ahem... it's NabOkov. I did however once find a copy of his memoir Speak, Memory very cheaply on eBay as it had been listed under the same misspelling and nobody else had found it...

    ReplyDelete
  2. JRSM14 September 2008 at 02:07

    Oh, good Lord, I can't believe I did that--repeatedly. All fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out. Aaaargh!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous20 February 2009 at 07:24

    I'm with you on Sebastian Knight, but I always thought Laughter in the Dark to be kind of all cruelty with no redemption. It is effectively done (the moment when point of view lifts out of book at moment of accident/loss of sight is beautiful), but the hint of outside or a ghostly guide has something a bit more hopeful and less aggressively cruel in his other novels. My own favorite N. cover is Milton Glaser's cover to Pnin.

    ReplyDelete
  4. JRSM21 February 2009 at 18:35

    Yes, that Glaser 'Pnin' cover is wonderful. 'Laughter...' is certainly a cruel book--I founhd myself reading it the way people are clichedly meant to read horror novels: late at night, all alone, glued to the page, freaked out...

    ReplyDelete