The darkly comic "Transparent Things", one of Nabokov's final books, traces the
bleak life of Hugh Person through murder, madness, prison and trips to Switzerla
nd. One of these was the last journey his father ever took; on another, having b
een sent to ingratiate himself with a distinguished novelist, he met his future
wife. Nabokov's brilliant short novel sinks into the transparent things of the w
orld that surround this one Person, to the silent histories they carry.
