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Nabokov's Laura; to burn or not to burn?

Should the book be published or burned?

  • Publish it-The greater good demands it

    Votes: 9 45.0%

  • Burn it-his property, his right to determine its fate

    Votes: 8 40.0%

  • Didn't he write that smut book?

    Votes: 3 15.0%
  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .
SFG75

SFG75

Well-Known Member
Found an interesting Slate article about Nabokov's son and his plan to burn the last book of his father upon his request. The book is rumored to be the capstone work of his life.

To burn or not to burn? It's not a question we can argue over forever. Time is running out, and the stakes are high: Dmitri's past pronouncements suggest that Laura is not merely another scrap of paper. At one point he called it "the most concentrated distillation of [my father's] creativity."

Think of that: the final "distillation" of the work of perhaps the greatest, certainly the most complex, writer of the past century. Is it the "key to all mythologies"? The Jamesian "figure in the carpet"? The lens through which—should it survive—we might retrospectively refocus our vision of Nabokov's art?

On the other hand, Dmitri has also said Laura "would have been a brilliant, original, and potentially totally radical book, in the literary sense very different from the rest of his oeuvre." Which is not the same as saying that it is a "distillation" in the conventional meaning of the term. It suggests a new revelation.
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So should the listen to the wishes of the father or the general public? This would be a tough decision.:cool:
 
Burn it. Especially with an author like Nabokov where he's 1) a perfectionist, and 2) his works really should be viewed whole to be fully appreciated.
 
I would also have to say burn it. As the author, and with it being unpublished, what he decided to do, should be done.
 
Since when is the author ever the best critic of his own work? I say go the Max Brod route; it's not as if ol' Vlad will ever know whether his son followed his will or not. Publishing it will harm nobody.
 
Undecided. I'd be curious to see what this novel was like, although I would understand why Nabokov's son ended up burning it.
 
Publish it. It's going to be noted by everyone and his dog that this book is unfinished, and the fact that nobody will buy an unfinished book unless they are immensely interested in the novelty of reading an unfinished Nabokov legacy anyway. Which means they know enough to evaluate the book on its own merits.

Mervyn Peake's 4th Gormenghast novel was also incomplete (couple of pages), and it was also published. Did not alter people's perception of Peake or the legacy he left, as far as I know.

ds
 
beer good said:
Since when is the author ever the best critic of his own work? I say go the Max Brod route; it's not as if ol' Vlad will ever know whether his son followed his will or not. Publishing it will harm nobody.
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Damn right. No Brod, no Kafka. Simple as that.

If we are quite happy to look at the unfinished works of John Steinbeck (The Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights) and Irène Némirovsky (Suite Française) and every bloody Tolkien pretty much out there then why we feel we shouldn't read an unfinished Nabokov because he wouldn't have wanted us to is nonsense.

And while we're at it, can we have Uncertain Times by Richard Yates, please? I want to know about his time writing for Kennedy.
 
I say publish it. Nabokov is dead, and his thoughts on the matter are irrelevant. Why put the interests of a dead man over the interests people who want to read it? Of course, I would understand if the son chose to destroy it.
 
Supposedly Virgil wished to have the Aeneid burned, but luckily for those of us 2000 years later, his request was ignored.

I have no way of knowing what kind of impact this book might have, but I doubt that it will be a negative one. I don't think we should throw away a chance to have a timeless piece of literature in the world's canon. As claybugg mentioned, Nabokov is dead. He won't know the difference one way or the other.
 
In the afterward of the 50th anniversary edition of Lolita, Nabokov talks about how many times he almost set fire to the manuscript and how relieved he was that he never did.

I understand Nabokov not wanting his unpolished work out there for all of us to judge. But why not publish it with a foreward saying this is an unfinished novel, dont scrutinize the words too much, focus on the idea presented.

I want it published. I want to read it. Laura is said to be a response to the critics who thought Lolita wasn't pornographic enough.

As of the last Slate article I read, Dmitri decided NOT to destroy the manuscript. But he hasn't decided on anything beyond that.
 
It's going to be published

Vladimir Nabokov's son will not destroy his father's last, unpublished novel (The Original of Laura), The Guardian reports today. Dmitri Nabokov told the German magazine Der Spiegel that he decided to publish the book after his father appeared to him in a vision: "I'm a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it, then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, 'You're stuck in a right old mess - just go ahead and publish!'"
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Hmm, I wonder who the beneficiary of the proceeds will be. Visions are certainly a good way to get people interested (and thus shell out money).

It's not like Nabokov cares whether it gets published or not. Or am I taking too realist and self-interest driven of a view here?
 
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