NABOKOV'S DOZEN

This collection of thirteen short stories is uneven and ranges from three or four first class short stories through various memories, curiosities, character sketches and a Kafka-esque horror story, to oddments that are next to pointless. Nabokov is at his most effective in and Once where his best qualities- humor- either caustic or nostalgic, and a tremendous feeling for the atmosphere of both people and places are employed most pointedly. As for the rest, even those where what he seems to want to write is an informal, speculative essay rather than a short story, most are amusing or stimulating or both. It is especially interesting in that the author of and L there seem letting the strains of those two most different books work or fight it out together.