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Saving Vladimir Nabokov ...
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Canada's magazine of book news and reviews | Saturday, January 19, 2008
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2008/01/18/saving-vladimir-nabokov/
Saving Vladimir Nabokov
January 18, 2008 | By Scott MacDonald
A literary ethical dilemma involving the unpublished writings of Vladimir Nabokov is discussed at length by journalist Ron Rosenbaum over at Slate. It seems that Nabokov’s sole remaining unpublished work – a manuscript titled The Original of Laura – is mouldering away somewhere in a Swiss bank vault, unread.
But Nabokov’s sole surviving heir – his 73-year-old son Dmitri – is torn about what he should do with it. Should he destroy it, as his father specifically requested, or ignore those wishes and unveil it to the world?
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So, to burn or not to burn? What say you, gentle readers?
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Wayne Jones Says: January 18th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
In a nice Nabokovian way, “to burn or not to burn?” is a single question which has an obvious answer on the ethical side (burn) and an obvious answer on the literary side (do not burn), but those are of course contradictory. If Dimitri is being a good son, then he has to respect the wishes of his father; if he is being a good member of the literary community, then he has to save “Laura.”
If I were voting, I would vote to save!
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