Subject
Re: Nabokov’s Notes For “The Origin a l of Laura” Go on the Auction Blo ck -and a SIGHTING
From
Date
Body
The matter seems straightforward to me: whoever buys the original note
cards should burn them.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:29 AM, james studdard <studlaw2000@yahoo.com>wrote:
> Jansy, et al:
> I am not at all a Nabokov scholar, but I have read the many (not so kind)
> reviews of VN's "Laura." The common thread running through most of the
> criticism is that the notes (and VN) would have been better served (as Tom
> Stoppard suggested) being burned.
> Do these scribbled notes offer any redemptive return to academics, or is
> VN's reputation diminished? Is the novel simply a teaser to ramp up the
> sale price of the note cards?" I really am confused by all this piffle.
> JWS
> **
> *From:* jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Sat, November 14, 2009 8:50:32 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov’s Notes For “The Origin al of Laura” Go
> on the Auction Block -and a SIGHTING
>
> *JM*:Kate Taylor's review literally inserts the punch of coincidence,
> ghostly voices authenticated by biographers, aging embryos, and great humor.
> So, to shift our focus slightly I want to add to her comments an overdue
> "VN Sighting."
> The more obvious one is an insertion of Nabokov's short-story "The
> Assistant Producer," among twenty-nince selected items at "The Anthology of
> Comic Writing," edited by Malcolm Bradbury (Phoenix Giants, 1994).
> It appears as the fifth, sandwiched between Jorge Luis Borges and "Pierre
> Menard, Author of Don Quixote,"and Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimple, the
> Fool." The amusing touch appears in Bradbury's introduction to Borges, not
> in his admiringly fair presentation of Nabokov.
>
> page 47: "*We read many things into books - their supposed author, the
> time they were written - and detached from those things they become what
> essentially they are: texts. Borges returned writing to being writing, and
> then explored its ambiguities... 'Pierre Menard'm alongside Borges' other
> teasing stories and parodies (and the work of fellow authors like Beckett,
> Queneau, and Nabokov), connected fiction to its own comic beginnings and
> the huge, confusing library of all past literature - to which, after all,
> every new piece of writing must be a footnote."*
>
> After the hazards of marchand d'art timings and of social history punch
> outs, readers shall soon be treated to a dying man's final jottings and his
> essential "text." - from where, perhaps, like Gogol's and Kafka's central
> human characters, another one, who mimes Psyché's butterfly, shall be
> trying "to get out of that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the
> cloak or the carapace." (LL, on Kafka's "Metamorphosis). **
> *
> .................................................................................................................................................................................
> *
> *Sandy P. Klein*: Nabokov’s *Notes For “The Original of Laura” Go on the
> Auction Block Christie's... THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)*
> http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/11/12/nabokovs-note-cards-for-the-original-of-laura-go-on-the-auction-block/Kate Taylor.
> *Looking for the perfect gift for the reader in your life? The Knopf
> hardcover...reproduces Nabokov’s handwritten index cards, complete with
> perforated edges so that one can punch them out and rearrange them as the
> author might have in his last days. But if you’re looking for something
> really special, skip the bookstore and head to Christie’s, where on December
> 4 you can bid on the actual thing...the work his son would call “an
> embryonic masterpiece.” Don’t expect to get them cheap, though. As the
> auction catalogue notes, manuscripts by Nabokov come on the market very
> rarely. Accordingly, the estimate is $400,000 to $600,000....Of the
> coincidence of the sale and the novel’s publication, Lecky said, “It will
> certainly increase the exposure of both. They’re obviously intimately
> linked”. Nabokov’s biographer, Brian Boyd, said in an email that the author
> would not be at all disturbed by his son’s profiting from “Laura*.”
>
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com/> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
cards should burn them.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:29 AM, james studdard <studlaw2000@yahoo.com>wrote:
> Jansy, et al:
> I am not at all a Nabokov scholar, but I have read the many (not so kind)
> reviews of VN's "Laura." The common thread running through most of the
> criticism is that the notes (and VN) would have been better served (as Tom
> Stoppard suggested) being burned.
> Do these scribbled notes offer any redemptive return to academics, or is
> VN's reputation diminished? Is the novel simply a teaser to ramp up the
> sale price of the note cards?" I really am confused by all this piffle.
> JWS
> **
> *From:* jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US>
> *To:* NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> *Sent:* Sat, November 14, 2009 8:50:32 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov’s Notes For “The Origin al of Laura” Go
> on the Auction Block -and a SIGHTING
>
> *JM*:Kate Taylor's review literally inserts the punch of coincidence,
> ghostly voices authenticated by biographers, aging embryos, and great humor.
> So, to shift our focus slightly I want to add to her comments an overdue
> "VN Sighting."
> The more obvious one is an insertion of Nabokov's short-story "The
> Assistant Producer," among twenty-nince selected items at "The Anthology of
> Comic Writing," edited by Malcolm Bradbury (Phoenix Giants, 1994).
> It appears as the fifth, sandwiched between Jorge Luis Borges and "Pierre
> Menard, Author of Don Quixote,"and Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimple, the
> Fool." The amusing touch appears in Bradbury's introduction to Borges, not
> in his admiringly fair presentation of Nabokov.
>
> page 47: "*We read many things into books - their supposed author, the
> time they were written - and detached from those things they become what
> essentially they are: texts. Borges returned writing to being writing, and
> then explored its ambiguities... 'Pierre Menard'm alongside Borges' other
> teasing stories and parodies (and the work of fellow authors like Beckett,
> Queneau, and Nabokov), connected fiction to its own comic beginnings and
> the huge, confusing library of all past literature - to which, after all,
> every new piece of writing must be a footnote."*
>
> After the hazards of marchand d'art timings and of social history punch
> outs, readers shall soon be treated to a dying man's final jottings and his
> essential "text." - from where, perhaps, like Gogol's and Kafka's central
> human characters, another one, who mimes Psyché's butterfly, shall be
> trying "to get out of that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the
> cloak or the carapace." (LL, on Kafka's "Metamorphosis). **
> *
> .................................................................................................................................................................................
> *
> *Sandy P. Klein*: Nabokov’s *Notes For “The Original of Laura” Go on the
> Auction Block Christie's... THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)*
> http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/11/12/nabokovs-note-cards-for-the-original-of-laura-go-on-the-auction-block/Kate Taylor.
> *Looking for the perfect gift for the reader in your life? The Knopf
> hardcover...reproduces Nabokov’s handwritten index cards, complete with
> perforated edges so that one can punch them out and rearrange them as the
> author might have in his last days. But if you’re looking for something
> really special, skip the bookstore and head to Christie’s, where on December
> 4 you can bid on the actual thing...the work his son would call “an
> embryonic masterpiece.” Don’t expect to get them cheap, though. As the
> auction catalogue notes, manuscripts by Nabokov come on the market very
> rarely. Accordingly, the estimate is $400,000 to $600,000....Of the
> coincidence of the sale and the novel’s publication, Lecky said, “It will
> certainly increase the exposure of both. They’re obviously intimately
> linked”. Nabokov’s biographer, Brian Boyd, said in an email that the author
> would not be at all disturbed by his son’s profiting from “Laura*.”
>
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com/> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/