Fiction review: The Original of Laura
THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA
Vladimir Nabokov
304 pages, Knopf, $35
BY ZAK M. SALIH
ZAK M. SALIH SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Published: January 17, 2010
FICTION
Publishing work against the dying wishes of an author. This is what passes for high drama in the literary world. After Franz Kafka's death in 1924, his literary executor, Max Brod, refused to burn the author's manuscripts. Had he followed through, the world wouldn't have "The Trial."
Flash forward to 2009 and consider the case of Vladimir Nabokov, one of the 20th century's greatest writers. At the time of his death, Nabokov was hard at work on a new novel, "The Original of Laura." Were he not to finish it before his death, he charged his family with destroying the work in progress.
And who would want to be in his son, Dmitri Nabokov's shoes? Follow through with his father's wishes and forsake the world a glimpse of what could have been another masterpiece? Or betray his father's wishes and publish writing at the stage it's never meant to be seen by others: raw and fragmented?
He chose the latter (as he recounts in a touching introduction) and has exposed "The Original of Laura" to the opinions of critics, scholars, and Nabokovians worldwide. Make no mistake -- this is not a posthumously published novel by any means. "The Original of Laura" is anything but complete. Instead, what Dmitri has done is publish the note cards on which his father drafted his work, deciphering the handwriting and also providing facsimiles of the cards themselves.
Woven among these notes -- some outlines of whole chapters, others scribbled phrases and words -- is a plot consisting of two main strands. The first involves Philip Wild, a rotund neuroscientist of sorts who embarks on a project to willfully "kill" parts of his body using the power of thought. The second concerns his cuckolding wife, Flora, who finds herself the subject of a novel written by one of her paramours.
Had the Fates allowed "The Original of Laura" to reach fruition, we might have had a fantastic novel on our hands; a meditation on death and the creative process (which makes sense, given the novel's eerie subtitle, "Dying is Fun"). Instead, we have the literary equivalent of a striptease filled with quick and tantalizing glimpses of Nabokov's linguistic genius.
As handsomely designed a book as it is, "The Original of Laura" is ultimately just a curio: an intriguing window into the mind of a masterful author but by no means the posthumous novel worth this act of literary hubris. It's a work best enjoyed by scholars and critics -- who can even punch out the perforated note-card facsimiles and, what? Trade them? Rearrange them and craft their own Nabokov novel?
The rest of us, however, would be better served indulging (or re-indulging) in masterpieces such as "Lolita" or "Pale Fire" -- Vladimir Nabokov as he was meant to be read.
Zak M. Salih is a special correspondent who lives in Washington
