The Original of Laura
by Vladimir Nabokov
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Book Summary Information
Author: Vladimir NabokovPreface: Dmitri Nabokov
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-11-17
ISBN: 0307271897
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of The Original of Laura
Book Review: Death as the Final Festish
Summary: 5 Stars
In the opening image of "The Original of Laura," a husband smashes a paperweight on the hand of his nymphomaniac wife as she rumages through his desk. The brutality is not payback for her affairs, but a warding off of her perceived attempt to snoop into his unfinished "poisonous opus." (In fact, she was searching for a piece of junk mail.)
Are we, the morbid readers of a work which the author never finished and, as the legend goes, gave instructions to destroy on his death bed, the ones who really deserve the bruised knuckles? Many who shell out full price for this thick hardcover which contains less than four thousand words will no doubt feel a certain stinging feeling. The decision to publish photographic images of Naboakov's original index cards side-by-side with a typeset version has its charm. But why the need to devote whole pages to their blank backs? I am not complaining, I am just not sure if this is a clue, a joke or a cheap con to get the volume up to fighting weight for the New Hardback racks.
The novel is about a fat, aging professor who copes with death by turning it into a sexual game and who copes with his wife's serial infidelities by writing a humiliating novel about her. As a side project, the professor is deconstucting, "The Interpretation of Dreams." We get plot and character in fragments. Yet the story has tremendous emotional heft. These are disturbed and, at times, ugly people. But we care about them despite ourselves, despite them and despite the fact that the novel is barely a first draft. Less is more, and, with a writer as miraculous as Nabakov, almost nothing is more than less.
The story behind the book's journey to print overshadows the actual story in the book, which itself is a unique literary achievement. In the introduction, Dimitri Nabokov explains the curse of his inheritance: satisfy his father's wishes when he is not sure of his father's wishes. In the end, he settles on a cop out: he is no longer going to deal with the debate, no more being hounded by academic stalkers. He has made us all the caretaker of his curse. We even get our own set of index cards.
Summary of The Original of Laura
This legendary novel has been the source of much anxiety and contention for Nabokov's fans - and family. The late Vladimir Nabokov requested that this unfinished work be destroyed, but his son, Dmitri, did not oblige, although neither did he allow the work to be published - until now. "The Original of Laura" is about a wonderfully large man called Philip Wild, married to a very promiscuous woman, and whose meditations concern the nature of death. The novel was complete in Nabokov's mind, though he died before he could translate his vision on to paper. It is hard, however, to imagine any scholars, Nabokov enthusiasts or literature lovers being disappointed by even these fragments.Book Description
When Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten index cards that made up the rough draft of his final and unfinished novel, The Original of Laura. But Nabokov?s wife, Vera, could not bear to destroy her husband?s last work, and when she died, the fate of the manuscript fell to her son. Dmitri Nabokov, now seventy-five--the Russian novelist?s only surviving heir, and translator of many of his books--has wrestled for three decades with the decision of whether to honor his father?s wish or preserve for posterity the last piece of writing of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. His decision finally to allow publication of the fragmented narrative--dark yet playful, preoccupied with mortality--affords us one last experience of Nabokov?s magnificent creativity, the quintessence of his unparalleled body of work.
Photos of the handwritten index cards accompany the text. They are perforated and can be removed and rearranged, as the author likely did when he was writing the novel.
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