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Fwd: Re: Ron Rosenbaum re Nabokov's LAURA (continued)
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----- Forwarded message from livingstonj@mail.montclair.edu -----
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 06:41:49 -0500
From: Jay Livingston <livingstonj@mail.montclair.edu>
Reply-To: Jay Livingston <livingstonj@mail.montclair.edu>
Subject: Re: Ron Rosenbaum re Nabokov's LAURA (continued)
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Ron Rosenbaum wrote (in The Observer): "it was a document that might
provide both clues to the final aesthetic direction of the greatest
writer of the past century--and a new perspective from which to look at
his astonishing, puzzling, endlessly rewarding past work."
When this story first appeared on the list, I sent a one-word message
which the moderator did not post. The word was "Rosebud," a word which
here means (to use a Lemony locution) that people might be exaggerating
the importance of a single, short work. Near the end of "Citizen Kane,"
a reporter says, "If you could have found out what rosebud meant I bet
that would've explained everything." But the character named Thompson,
who has been skeptical of this idea since the first reel, says, in part,
"I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess rosebud is
just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece."
Jay Livingston
----- End forwarded message -----