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New _TOoL_ review ...
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Sandy Klein sends the link to http://www.theworld.org/2010/04/09/world-books-review-the-original-of-laura/ - World Books Review: ‘The Original of Laura”, April 9, 2010, reviewed by Anna Razumnaya. It begins quoting Vladimir Nabokov, “Softest of Tongues” (1941)
"Thus life has been an endless line of land
receding endlessly… And so that’s that,
you say under your breath, and wave your hand,
and then your handkerchief, and then your hat."
Razumnaya writes that "The Original of Laura”..."is Vladimir Nabokov’s latest previously unpublished prose work to descend upon the market. One is wary of saying “last” rather than “latest,” as Nabokov’s “Butterflies,” ...was similarly trumped up to be “the last important unpublished fiction by Nabokov.” Dmitri Nabokov, the writer’s son, translated the Russian texts for Nabokov’s “Butterflies.” He now figures as the editor of his father’s unfinished and deeply incomplete final novel...Dmitri Nabokov’s introduction...in a tone that one has to understand, for lack of other plausible interpretation, as triumphant...His mannered description of Nabokov’s death—“My mother and I sat near him as, choking on the food I was urging him to consume, he succumbed, in three convulsive gasps, to congestive bronchitis,”—astonishes not only with its affectation but also with the parricidal relish of the moment...Dmitri Nabokov’s judgment to preserve and publish “The Original of Laura” as a popular edition lends itself but to trivial gains....The unfinished novel, whose prose, prurient and unpruned, makes the sum of Nabokov’s output less, not more, impressive. Laura is no “maddening masterpiece” ...“Laura,” an unfinished work of indisputable scholarly interest, is ill-suited for being published as a lavish gift edition. Likewise, it seems strange of its publisher to proffer it coyly as a kind of literary a game for grown-ups, since “Laura” is a book about dying—not in the manner of Lolita, as in Martin Amis’s clear-sighted synopsis: "…once the book begins, Humbert’s childhood love Annabel dies, at thirteen (typhus), and his first wife Valeria dies (also in childbirth), and his second wife Charlotte dies (‘a bad accident’—though of course this death is structural), and Charlotte’s friend Jean Farlow dies at thirty-three (cancer), and Lolita’s young seducer Charlie Holmes dies (Korea), and her old seducer Quilty dies (murder: another structural exit). And then Humbert dies (coronary thrombosis). And then Lolita dies. And her daughter dies..."The striking feature of Dmitri Nabokov’s edition of “Laura” is the wresting of authorial control, by a son, from a father whose deep obsession with control was manifest throughout his literary career, including this final unfinished novel..."
JM: Considering the present discussion on "Nabokov and Cruelty" I must ask: who has been cruel to whom? Must reviewers follow "neosincerity" ( I loved the falsehood in this designation by Art Spiegelman - but I still don't know what it means), or distribute unwanted truths?
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"Thus life has been an endless line of land
receding endlessly… And so that’s that,
you say under your breath, and wave your hand,
and then your handkerchief, and then your hat."
Razumnaya writes that "The Original of Laura”..."is Vladimir Nabokov’s latest previously unpublished prose work to descend upon the market. One is wary of saying “last” rather than “latest,” as Nabokov’s “Butterflies,” ...was similarly trumped up to be “the last important unpublished fiction by Nabokov.” Dmitri Nabokov, the writer’s son, translated the Russian texts for Nabokov’s “Butterflies.” He now figures as the editor of his father’s unfinished and deeply incomplete final novel...Dmitri Nabokov’s introduction...in a tone that one has to understand, for lack of other plausible interpretation, as triumphant...His mannered description of Nabokov’s death—“My mother and I sat near him as, choking on the food I was urging him to consume, he succumbed, in three convulsive gasps, to congestive bronchitis,”—astonishes not only with its affectation but also with the parricidal relish of the moment...Dmitri Nabokov’s judgment to preserve and publish “The Original of Laura” as a popular edition lends itself but to trivial gains....The unfinished novel, whose prose, prurient and unpruned, makes the sum of Nabokov’s output less, not more, impressive. Laura is no “maddening masterpiece” ...“Laura,” an unfinished work of indisputable scholarly interest, is ill-suited for being published as a lavish gift edition. Likewise, it seems strange of its publisher to proffer it coyly as a kind of literary a game for grown-ups, since “Laura” is a book about dying—not in the manner of Lolita, as in Martin Amis’s clear-sighted synopsis: "…once the book begins, Humbert’s childhood love Annabel dies, at thirteen (typhus), and his first wife Valeria dies (also in childbirth), and his second wife Charlotte dies (‘a bad accident’—though of course this death is structural), and Charlotte’s friend Jean Farlow dies at thirty-three (cancer), and Lolita’s young seducer Charlie Holmes dies (Korea), and her old seducer Quilty dies (murder: another structural exit). And then Humbert dies (coronary thrombosis). And then Lolita dies. And her daughter dies..."The striking feature of Dmitri Nabokov’s edition of “Laura” is the wresting of authorial control, by a son, from a father whose deep obsession with control was manifest throughout his literary career, including this final unfinished novel..."
JM: Considering the present discussion on "Nabokov and Cruelty" I must ask: who has been cruel to whom? Must reviewers follow "neosincerity" ( I loved the falsehood in this designation by Art Spiegelman - but I still don't know what it means), or distribute unwanted truths?
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/