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DN responds to recent articles on TOOL 2
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THE GOOFY TALE ABOUT MY PROPOSING TO MY FRIEND MARTIN AMIS THAT HE
FINISH LAURA, SETTING IT IN LONDON'S "UNDERBELLY", IS, BY HIS OWN
ADMISSION, A JOKE EXCOGITATED BY ONE JEFF VANDERMEER. FRANKLY I DID NOT
FIND THIS AMBIGUOUS (AND UNGRAMMATICAL) CONCOCTION PARTICULARLY TASTEFUL
OR ENTERTAINING.
INCIDENTALLY, I NEVER EMPLOYED THE ODD LOCUTION "RIGHT OLD MESS," WHICH
HAS BEEN ASCRIBED TO ME, PRESUMABLY QUOTING MY DEAD FATHER, IN A
MYSTICAL SEANCE IMAGINED BY SOMEWHAT FLIPPANT JOURNALIST CYNTHIA OZICK .
DN
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 8:36 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/04/dmitri_saveslauraozick_wins_pr.html
Dmitri saves "Laura"
Cynthia Ozick
Dmitri Nabokov had a visit from his dead father Vladimir and decided to
publish the manuscript he's been threatening to burn. It's called "The
Original of Laura" and it was written on about 50 index cards by
Vladimir Nabokov, who stated in his will that he wanted the cards
destroyed. Dmitri Nabokov, his father's executor, has been hemming and
hawing for years about what to do, but apparently a visit from the old
man's ghost sealed the deal.
"I'm a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it," Dmitri
Nabokov told Der Spiegel, "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!' "
Cynthia Ozick, the president of the Brian Doyle Fan Club, just won two
big awards. One of them has Nabokov's name on it. Ozick's not ready for
the literary scrap heap, either. Her new book, "Dictation," a short
collection of four long stories, is hot off the presses.
Complete article and photos available at the following URL:
http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/04/27/vladimir-nabokov-and-my-bookshelves/
Vladimir Nabokov and My Bookshelves
With The Original of Laura, Vladimir Nabokov's final novel, now set to
be published, and NPR re-running a feature today on Lolita, I thought it
might be a good time to share photos of my Nabokov collection (after the
cut below).
[ ... ]
The photo above, by the way, is by Jacob McMurray for my SF Site piece
on lost books. At the time I suggested Martin Amis might finish The
Original of Laura:
Nabokov intended to complete this novel after finishing Look at the
Harlequins!, but ill health prevented him from doing so. For many years,
all Nabokovites had to sustain them were such Laura notes as
"Inspiration. Radiant insomnia. The flavour and snows of beloved
alpine slopes. A novel without an I, without a he, but with the
narrator, a gliding eye, being implied throughout." None of which
revealed much about the plot. In 1999, a friend of the Nabokovs — a
roving entomologist on a Fulbright — found a series of notecards hidden
in the casing of a Nabokov butterfly case donated to Cornell University
upon his death. The notecards sketched out a preliminary draft of The
Original of Laura. Dmitri Nabokov then enlisted the help of Martin Amis
to complete the novel. In that a first person narrator replaces
Nabokov's "gliding eye" and that Amis inserted several seedy
characters and changed the setting of the novel to London's underbelly,
one might wonder if it would have been better had the notecards remained
with the butterflies.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
FINISH LAURA, SETTING IT IN LONDON'S "UNDERBELLY", IS, BY HIS OWN
ADMISSION, A JOKE EXCOGITATED BY ONE JEFF VANDERMEER. FRANKLY I DID NOT
FIND THIS AMBIGUOUS (AND UNGRAMMATICAL) CONCOCTION PARTICULARLY TASTEFUL
OR ENTERTAINING.
INCIDENTALLY, I NEVER EMPLOYED THE ODD LOCUTION "RIGHT OLD MESS," WHICH
HAS BEEN ASCRIBED TO ME, PRESUMABLY QUOTING MY DEAD FATHER, IN A
MYSTICAL SEANCE IMAGINED BY SOMEWHAT FLIPPANT JOURNALIST CYNTHIA OZICK .
DN
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 8:36 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/04/dmitri_saveslauraozick_wins_pr.html
Dmitri saves "Laura"
Cynthia Ozick
Dmitri Nabokov had a visit from his dead father Vladimir and decided to
publish the manuscript he's been threatening to burn. It's called "The
Original of Laura" and it was written on about 50 index cards by
Vladimir Nabokov, who stated in his will that he wanted the cards
destroyed. Dmitri Nabokov, his father's executor, has been hemming and
hawing for years about what to do, but apparently a visit from the old
man's ghost sealed the deal.
"I'm a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it," Dmitri
Nabokov told Der Spiegel, "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!' "
Cynthia Ozick, the president of the Brian Doyle Fan Club, just won two
big awards. One of them has Nabokov's name on it. Ozick's not ready for
the literary scrap heap, either. Her new book, "Dictation," a short
collection of four long stories, is hot off the presses.
Complete article and photos available at the following URL:
http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/04/27/vladimir-nabokov-and-my-bookshelves/
Vladimir Nabokov and My Bookshelves
With The Original of Laura, Vladimir Nabokov's final novel, now set to
be published, and NPR re-running a feature today on Lolita, I thought it
might be a good time to share photos of my Nabokov collection (after the
cut below).
[ ... ]
The photo above, by the way, is by Jacob McMurray for my SF Site piece
on lost books. At the time I suggested Martin Amis might finish The
Original of Laura:
Nabokov intended to complete this novel after finishing Look at the
Harlequins!, but ill health prevented him from doing so. For many years,
all Nabokovites had to sustain them were such Laura notes as
"Inspiration. Radiant insomnia. The flavour and snows of beloved
alpine slopes. A novel without an I, without a he, but with the
narrator, a gliding eye, being implied throughout." None of which
revealed much about the plot. In 1999, a friend of the Nabokovs — a
roving entomologist on a Fulbright — found a series of notecards hidden
in the casing of a Nabokov butterfly case donated to Cornell University
upon his death. The notecards sketched out a preliminary draft of The
Original of Laura. Dmitri Nabokov then enlisted the help of Martin Amis
to complete the novel. In that a first person narrator replaces
Nabokov's "gliding eye" and that Amis inserted several seedy
characters and changed the setting of the novel to London's underbelly,
one might wonder if it would have been better had the notecards remained
with the butterflies.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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