EDNote: the following is Dmitri Nabokov's response to the Publius blog
entry which was linked in a posting yesterday. There have been some
technical complications in assuring that DN's text appear in the form
he deems most appropriate, and I believe we have worked these out. As
I understand it, DN is in part replying to a personal message from
Brian Boyd regarding the Publius piece. I do not believe that BB's
letter has been made public.~SB
The (apparently anonymous) blog, once again, is at:
http://thepubliusproject.blogspot.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dmitri Nabokov Date: Tue, Mar 4,
2008 at 12:00 PM
Subject: Fwd:
To: Stephen Blackwell <sblackwe@utk.edu>
Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 11:54 PM
Dear Brian,
I find this item eminently forgettable, and compelling only as a
missile destined for the same refuse bin as Rosenbaum's ravings. If
one can get past the middling syntax and peculiar punctuation of
Publius, what does one find? A fishy parable about a putative tycoon
(on the model of the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, et al.), who may have
mercilessly plundered America, only to have his dying wishes revered by
an adoring public under the menace of outrage in case of disrespect.
Is this a good example? Has this sanctity been observed, from
Rockefeller to Enron?
Here we come to an impasse. Whatever is buried, in any sense of the
word, is bound, one day, to be unearthed. Hence the only certain
method of rendering Laura totally inaccessible, ever to anyone, would
be destruction of every fragment of every page. Yet the media hounds
are already sniffing at my doorstep, at least one trusted acquaintance
has not resisted temptation, and bits of Laura have been leaked. For
now they are, at worst, no more than approximate, titillating morsels.
But before long, some swine may try for the big scoop. In light of
all this, how can one speak of permanent concealment from prying eyes?
Not to speak of the handful of copies, of varying accuracy, in the
hands of trusted, or chance, individuals, who, like all mortals, are
subject to the whims of destiny.
Here I must quickly interject the following: it has been suggested
that I am among those who have unveiled bits of Laura. I would quickly
challenge anyone who questioned my convictions about what my father
might have condoned. It was with this knowledge that, to make a point
in a university lecture, I cited the following tidbit:
"Her exquisite bone structure immediately slipped into a novel --
became in fact the secret structure of that novel, besides supporting a
number of poems."
My only other sin was granting permission to use an equally small and
harmless quote in a quiz printed in the Nabokovian. I shall not bother
here with other matters of little import, such as a hoax by one Jeff
Edmunds -- a glaring case of misused talent -- that for a second fooled
a couple of experts and then was subsequently exploded by me and
rehashed at length by Edmunds himself. The hoax material, of course,
was not from the real Laura, but a clever imitation of Nabokov's style.
This, however, is quite beside the point. The point is that as long as
there is a copy of Laura in any state, or a substantial segment
thereof, the "dying wishes of this remarkable man" can no longer be
guaranteed to remain inviolate. And it is a breach of all logic to
affirm on the strength of what Publius writes, that A) "in death we
respect the entrepreneur" and B) "we hesitate when it comes to the
text" of the great writer. How on earth do we know who is respected
and who reviled after his death? Who are the mysterious "we"? I shall
not waste time and type upon Publius's discussion of precedents and
parallels, for that would add nothing cogent to the basic question at
hand. I shall, however, mention that some thought more profound than
that of Publius is in order.
Brian Boyd will confirm that his first reaction upon being briefly
shown the manuscript was "Burn", and that, after some years of
rumination, he decided,
"But looking at (Laura) again, I admire what I see...
"I think you have heeded VN's wishes to some extent by not publishing
it for more than thirty years after his death...Nabokov's reputation is
more secure than ever, with major writers within English and Russian
and other traditions regarding him as one of the all-time classics...I
think publishing (Laura) cannot damage VN's reputation and can only
stimulate new interest."
On one point Publius is correct: no writer, and for that matter none of
us, can foretell whether we shall be thunderstruck or heart-stopped an
instant from now. Therefore it is ridiculous to ask why, when,
moreover, he fully expected to finish it, my father did not destroy the
manuscript prematurely (I was present when, with a sudden triple gasp,
he abuptly succumbed to congestive bronchitis). However, Publius is
way off base when he propounds the conjecture that "Mr. Nabokov may
have thought to destroy Lolita but did not actually do it." It was my
mother who physically impeded that destruction, not once but twice, by
snatching an early version of Lolita from his grasp as he was
approaching the incinerator in our Ithaca yard.
Publius is full of other curious suppositions, such as "We shall never
know how many projects (Nabokov) abandoned and destroyed while he was
living." We may not be aware of all of those projects, but we -- or
rather I -- can learn a great deal from the troves of Nabokoviana that
have survived and not been published.
Publius goes to further lengths in his moralizing and even trots out
Milan Kundera's affirmation "aesthetic wishes show not only by what an
author has written but by what he has deleted." Nabokov said that in a
more concise and picturesque manner: "I use far more erasers that
pencils when I write".
Unfortunately, I lack the time to comment on Publius's's analogy of
sabotaging the Mona Lisa with a moustache (which could easily be
barbered away with modern techniques). I have time only to draw a
thick red line through his other considerations, and end by saying: A)
it is materially impossible to collect and eradicate all significant
traces of Laura; B) we stand to gain considerable enjoyment from the
splendid thought and language in that part of the novel that has
reached a reasonable degree of completion; C) we stand to savor and
learn a lot from the notes to be found in the appended jottings about
how a genius's mind performs its art; D) it is my own damn business how
I spend my money, but I can announce that much of it -- Laura or not --
will go to valid charities such as the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg
or an association for the protection of animals; E) my dear father
himself would have found huge enjoyment while observing the hefty
amount of nonsense and the bits of brilliance that are going into
l'affaire Laura; and F) (are you listening, Rosenbaum?) how do we know
that he is not, in fact, observing?
Greetings to all,
Dmitri Nabokov
ps: Oddly, it seems my text has been tinkered with; I have recorrected
as needed.