According to the New York Times, the world is soon to be braced by a new Vladimir Nabokov novel. For those of you too busy to tackle the article in its entirety, here’s the gist of it: Nabokov died in 1977 before completing a new novel that was tentatively titled The Original of Laura. Known as an artistic perfectionist, he left instructions for his family to destroy the 138 note cards that comprised the Laura manuscript upon his death. His wife, Véra, failed to carry out her husband's injunction before her own passing in 1991. Since then, a literary weight that could buckle old Atlas has rested squarely on the shoulders of Nabokov's only son, Dimitri.
Now, nearly 31 years since his father unwittingly relinquished control of Laura, Dimitri Nabokov has decided to play the bastard Edmund and publish the work in progress. Soon, a mass of scholars, readers, and fellow writers will have more Nabokov to debate, devour, and emulate. I find it disheartening that the very people who should defend the master’s corpus literati are likely to be the vultures who eagerly pick the carrion from his literary bones.
To put it very lightly, I'm no Nabokov. Yet even I won't publish a piece until all the words hang in place and there’s a certain music to it. Only the author knows when that moment arrives and the work is, for lack of a better word, “completed.” Some pieces that I work on never get there. Those go unpublished. When I kick off, I don't want friends or relatives posting the scribbles and ramblings that have yet to take their full shape. Those should be considered deceased in utero. I may not have much in common with Nabokov - who inarguably ranks with Proust, Melville, and Billy Shakespeare among the great writers - but on this one issue we obviously felt the same. If Nabokov himself called for the matches, it is my opinion that we should respect his wishes and let Laura burn.
Perhaps I’m failing to see the issue correctly. It’s possible that Dmitri sees himself as Charles Kinbote to his father’s John Shade. Or perhaps, as the 74-year-old son nears the end of his own life, he is using Laura's publication as a way to see his father live again. Either is certainly a nobler alternative than the first and most obvious motivation to cross my mind: cold, calculated greed.
Nabokov the son shrugs off the accusation of money-grubbery with a winning quip: “It's true that my wheelchair requires some costly modifications to fit into the trunk of a Maserati coupe.” So why else then would he knowingly betray his father’s wishes? It's no secret that the work of an celebrated author appreciates better than a fine wine. A 1977 vintage Château Margaux might fetch upwards of $450. I’d say a 1977 vintage Nabokov, even a demi-bouteille like Laura, is easily worth a few million.
If Dmitri’s intentions were purely altruistic (which would first require this article’s author to believe that altruism is a human trait), why not distribute the work on the Internet, where anyone who’s curious to read Laura could do so for free. That would serve to deflate the supposition that Dmitri is merely a profiteer. Better still, he could stay true to his father’s wishes and place the manuscript in a museum. Scholars would make the pilgrimage to study Laura in the original. Visitors would be treated to a rare glimpse at Nabokov’s legendary working method. The integrity of the work and the integrity of its author could thusly be preserved.
Integrity. That seems to be the issue at question, doesn't it? I certainly don’t consider myself a literary puritan. And perhaps I’m being too severe in my judgment of Dimitri, a man who has devoted his own life to translating and preserving the work of his father. I would by lying if I said I was not tantalized by the prospect of reading something more by an author I hold in heavenly esteem, whose vicious wit and pitch-perfect phrasing thrilled me for many a night on this wide, lonely range. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that if we, as an audience, were meant to read The Original of Laura, Nabokov would have lived to complete it.
5 comments:
you stand on principal, rifleman. but i wonder if you'll be able to refrain from reading the book.
whose principal? there are so many fine learning institutions sprinkled across the great range.
What about John Kennedy Toole? Hemingway? Both men had classics published after their deaths.
To my knowledge, neither author left a directive to destroy unfinished work.
Yes, the rifelman is correct: Nabokov left a note directing his wife to destroy the manuscript. His wife never got around to it before she died, and so it falls to Dmitri, who is violating his father's last dying wish because his mother was too weak to do it her damn self.
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