The Eye is a short, ironic novella that explores identity, self-consciousness, and the instability of the self. The narrator, Smurov, believes he has committed suicide after a humiliating incident, yet continues to observe the world as if he were a disembodied spectator. Convinced he now exists only as an “eye,” he becomes obsessed with how others perceive him, collecting their opinions as if they were objective truths. Gradually, the reader realizes that Smurov is very much alive and deeply unreliable, constructing an elaborate fantasy to escape shame and insignificance.

Witty, concise, and formally inventive, The Eye anticipates Nabokov’s later fascination with unreliable narrators and the blurred boundary between psychological illusion and reality.