Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016004, Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:46:18 -0800

Subject
Laura...
Date
Body




Dear Dmitri Vladimirovich,



It is completely understandable that you might very well like to keep
Laura out of the hands of dull-tupye critics who might heap mounds of
psychobabble or other obscenities upon the text. But do you really want
to deprive the more sensitive and discerning from the tenderness, loving
play, the art and heart of your father? Who knows, Philip Wild might be
a gesture to that "wild word," that "dikoe slovo," that "I-Ya,"
contemplated by Khodasevich before his mirror, ruminating on Nel mezzo
del cammin di nostra vita, or, perhaps much more improbably to Oscar and
the importance of being Vladimir with roots in the Russian literature
prevalent in his Petersburg youth. The joy, the fun, the innovation, the
artistry and brilliance, the deeply felt tenderness for that bit of Pnin
in all of us-some of that must be, however incomplete or fragmentary, in
Laura. It should not be lost.



Sincerely,



Jerry Katsell








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