http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Unabashedly-Bookish/Dmitri-Nabokov-Did-the-Right-Thing/ba-p/360544
Dmitri Nabokov Did the Right Thing
07-03-2009 11:59 AM
On July 2, 1977 Vladimir Nabokov died, leaving behind him, besides a body of published work that continues to fascinate readers, a manuscript written on 138 index cards that he told his heirs to destroy but that will be published as the Original of Laura in November. The decision to publish, which has rested with Nabokov's son Dmitri since 1991, was a difficult one to make, and in the end, Dimitri relied, he believes, on his father's judgment, even though his decision contradicts his father's wishes.
Dmitri explained his reasoning in an e-mail to The Book Show, a radio program that devoted an episode to the subject of the novel on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio National (See the transcript), in the following terms: "To wit, and quite independently of any words anyone might have wanted to put in my mouth or thoughts into my brain, I have decided that my father, with a wry and fond smile, might well have contradicted himself upon seeing me in my present situation and said, ‘Well, why don't you mix the useful with the pleasurable? That is, say or do what you like but why not make some money on the damn thing?'"[1]
In a Slate article on the topic, Ron Rosenbaum describes the exchange between the dead father and living son as "an imagined ghostly conversation," but Dimitri, it seems to me, had no need of imagining a conversation with a ghost--unless you are inclined to regard reading dead authors as conversing with the dead. Publishing the Original of Laura is in the spirit of Nabokov's thought, or an element of it, even if doing so goes against his final wishes.
Following a man's dying wish may be one of those strictures that many feel it a sacrilege to break, but we should remember, as Nabokov wrote:
It is instructive to think that there is not a single person . . . in any room in the world, who, at some nicely chosen point in historical space-time would not be put to death there and then, here and now, by a commonsensical majority in righteous rage. The color of one's creed, neckties, eyes, thoughts, manners, speech, is sure to meet somewhere in time or space with a fatal objection from a mob that hates that particular tone. . . . Stranger always rhymes with danger. The meek prophet, the enchanter in his cave, the indignant artist, the nonconforming little schoolboy, all share in the same sacred danger. And this being so, let us bless them, let us bless the freak; for in the natural evolution of things, the ape would perhaps never have become man had not a freak appeared in the family. Anybody whose mind is proud enough not to breed true, secretly carries a bomb at the back of his brain; and so I suggest, just for the fun of the thing, taking that private bomb and carefully dropping it upon the model city of commonsense. In the brilliant light of the ensuing explosion many curious things will appear. . . .
To have destroyed Nabokov's last manuscript would have been to give in to social righteousness, especially if it is worth reading. (Someone who knows Nabokov's work as well as Dmitri and who is intensely concerned with his father's literary reputation should be able to judge the worthiness of the work, so we can presumably be assured that what is going to be published isn't drivel, even if it doesn't live up to its author's exacting standards.) While the act of publishing in this case may not be as creative as the work of the prophet, the enchanter, or the artist, it is certainly something worthy of the spirit of the nonconforming schoolboy, whose rebellion is often that of the contrarian intent on doing the opposite of what he has been told to do, and if the novel is as radical as Dmitri has said it is, or at least suggests a radical approach to writing novels, we will be grateful for the ensuing explosions to which it gives rise, that is, the novels that it will influence, so I say, let us bless Dmitri and his kind, executors such as Emily Dickinson's who ignore last wishes.
1. This paragraph was added, one was deleted, and some changes were made to the others, after I read PaulH's post "The Living Rights of Dead Authors" and RTA's comment on that post, which sent me to Rosenbaum's Slate articles and on to the transcript of the ABC broadcast. I initially planned to only use the quote from "The Art of Literature and Commonsense." Paul's post made me consider scraping this one altogether, but it was too late for me to think of something else. Instead, let me, in the spirit of an academic acknowledgement, thank PaulH and RFA for pointing me in a better direction. I hope neither of you are offended; if so, feel free to give voice to your offense below.
