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Re: TOOL? - DN reply ...
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DN : 1. Neither I nor my father ever referred to the work in question as "Original Laura." ; 2. What "damage," may I ask, has been done?
JM:When the present issue happened to be mentioned by our newspapers the novel's title appeared as "The Original Laura". I wondered about such a misprint - if there had been an initial title ( besides "Dying is Fun") which was altered later on.
About the damage, the best is to check directly the article:http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/may08-proposal-to-nabokov
An Earnest Proposal for Dmitri Nabokov by Amelia Glaser: "The damage, I fear, has been done. Dmitri Nabokov, after years of teasing his father’s readers[...]
Excerpts: But wait, Dmitri Vladimirovich – before you dash our hopes for Laura by publishing her, consider a proposal that would both adhere to the letter of your father’s request, and give his readers a taste of the last moments of his creativity....[...] a translation comes later than the original, and since the important works of world literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their origin, their translation marks their stage of continued life. Which returns me to my plea: If it has been so painful to give Laura life, why not go straight for an afterlife? Lose the text in translation. Or rather, let us find it there. After all, as Boyd informs
us, a provisional title for the novel was The Original of Laura: Dying is Fun.[...] But in compensation for a daunting translator’s task, this rendition will never be compared to an original. To relieve the burden of responsibility, why not commission two translations, or three, or seventy-two? Once this is done, Dmitri Vladimirovich, burn Laura in good faith. Or tell us you did.
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
JM:When the present issue happened to be mentioned by our newspapers the novel's title appeared as "The Original Laura". I wondered about such a misprint - if there had been an initial title ( besides "Dying is Fun") which was altered later on.
About the damage, the best is to check directly the article:http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/may08-proposal-to-nabokov
An Earnest Proposal for Dmitri Nabokov by Amelia Glaser: "The damage, I fear, has been done. Dmitri Nabokov, after years of teasing his father’s readers[...]
Excerpts: But wait, Dmitri Vladimirovich – before you dash our hopes for Laura by publishing her, consider a proposal that would both adhere to the letter of your father’s request, and give his readers a taste of the last moments of his creativity....[...] a translation comes later than the original, and since the important works of world literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their origin, their translation marks their stage of continued life. Which returns me to my plea: If it has been so painful to give Laura life, why not go straight for an afterlife? Lose the text in translation. Or rather, let us find it there. After all, as Boyd informs
us, a provisional title for the novel was The Original of Laura: Dying is Fun.[...] But in compensation for a daunting translator’s task, this rendition will never be compared to an original. To relieve the burden of responsibility, why not commission two translations, or three, or seventy-two? Once this is done, Dmitri Vladimirovich, burn Laura in good faith. Or tell us you did.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com