It's a simple book in many respects. It takes place physically in a boarding room and features a cast of Russian emigres. The bulk of the text however takes place in Ganin's head as he remembers his first love back in Russia. Their story is filled in with flashbacks as Ganin is sitting in his room or wandering the streets of Berlin. His memory and longing for Mary is stirred by a picture shown to him by one of the other borders. It is a picture of Mary and the other man says that this is his wife and she is arriving in 5 days.
It is translated by someone else and it does seem to lack some of the careful linguistic color that Nabokov uses when he writes in English.
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