Nov 19 2008
In April 2008 Vladimir Nabokov's son announced that he planned to publish a controversial incomplete work by his father.
Now, some months later, 73-year-old Dmitri Nabokov is ready to reveal some of the book's details. Entitled The Original of Laura, it was written on 138 index cards by the Russian-American author of Lolita as he lay dying in hospital. Just before he died, he made his wife, Vera, promise to throw the manuscript on the fire. She could not bring herself to do it.
When Vera died, the decision about what to do with the novel was passed to his son. Mr Nabokov has now decided to publish the book, which is likely to cause a sensation when it is released next year.
Interviewed by the BBC, the 73-year-old said: "My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn't name a book one intends to destroy. He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he did not see death staring him in the face. He certainly would not have wanted it destroyed. He would have finished it."
The hero of the book is Philip Wild, an overweight and physically unattractive academic with a brilliant mind who has a "wildly promiscuous" and unfaithful wife named Flora, whom he married because of her resemblance to a young woman he once loved.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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