A Brazilian psychoanalyst reviewing a book by a French semiologist working on Russian Vladimir Nabokov to have it read in English requires a lot of traveling through signs and languages. It may also provide an experience similar to a cultural shock and as such my first reaction to Yona Dureau´s (2001) “ Nabokov ou Le sourire du chat” was: “How very French this author is …”.

Dureau´s “ Nabokov or The Cat´s Smile” is 506 pages long; it includes a Preface, an Introduction, Seven Chapters, a Conclusion (that pretends not to be conclusive), an extensive Bibliography with detailed comments plus a summary of Nabokov´s major novels, and a Complementary Bibliography.