Dmitri Nabokov has finally made a decision. For years the son of Vladimir has been tormenting critics, academics and the reading public with his dilemma: should he publish his father's last novel? Before he died in 1977 Vladimir Nabokov left instructions that the novel, The Original of Laura, be torched, but Dmitri demurred, then vacillated. First, he publicly implied very strongly that it would be burnt, then changed his mind, then threatened to burn it anyway after a nobody claimed to have detected in Lolita signs that Vladimir had been abused by his uncle.
In February The Times joined the debate in an article I wrote; it so enraged Dmitri that he fired off several incandescent e-mails, capped-up for emphasis in Dmitri's trademark style. He became convinced that a woman I'd never heard of, Lara Delage-Toriel, had leaked information about the novel's contents.
Luckily, I'd been primed. “Dmitri loves drama,” two of his associates had warned me. His missives became so violent that we ceased communication. Then he sent me a copy of what Business Standard had done on the story.
But finally Dmitri (pictured with his father) has announced his intention to do what we always knew he would do: publish. “IT'S TRUE,” reads his most recent e-mail. How did he resolve his dilemma? When his father's ghost appeared to him in Palm Springs. “[He] appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, ‘You're stuck in a right old mess - just go ahead and publish!'” The surprisingly mellow ghost of Vladimir further counselled his son: “Do what you like, but why not make some money on the damn thing?” And after this 30-year drum roll, there's little chance he won't.
