NABOKV-L post 0015990, Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:01:56 -0500

Ramona Koval

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2157977.htm
Should Nabokov's unpublished manuscript be burned?
Listen Now - 15022008 |Download Audio - 15022008


Dmitri Nabokov is 73, and he has a difficult decision to make: he has fragments of an unpublished manuscript by his father, Vladimir, that the father wanted burned after his death. Vera Nabokov, Vladimir's wife, couldn't do it and Dmitri Nabokov has been the literary executor of Vladimir Nabokov's estate since his mother died in 1991 and he hasn't carried out his father's wishes either. What should he do?


In 2005 journalist and commentator Ron Rosenbaum found out that Dmitri Nabokov was close to making a decision on the fate of his father's last manuscript and started a campaign in the New York Observer to stop the burning of this document. Then in January this year the call became more urgent, because Dmitri was apparently even closer to the decision of whether he would fulfil his father's wishes and destroy it.


At the moment the incomplete manuscript -- The Original of Laura --resides in a Swiss bank vault. Dmitri has said in an interview in 1998 that it would have been 'a brilliant, original and potentially totally radical book, in the literary sense, very different from the rest of his oeuvre [but] my father gave the order to destroy it.'


The Book Show has been in email contact with Dmitri Nabokov to find out about whether he's any closer to making a decision. He has sent charming letters to the program and in the first one he sent, he said:


'I was close to making a decision, but, in view of the growing worldwide ruckus, have rethought certain things [since the Times interview] and realistically pondered my father's potential reaction.'


We have since heard from Dmitri again, and we tell you what he wrote in his email to us later in the discussion.


But let's see what the panel think about this literary dilemma and how they have been involved in Dmitri's drama.


Joining Ramona Koval from Radio NZ's Auckland studio is Brian Boyd. He is professor of English at the University of Auckland and a Nabokov specialist. Two of his many books on the subject are Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, both critical biographies of Nabokov. He is also one of the few people other than Dmitri and Vera Nabokov to have read The Original of Laura.


Ron Rosenbaum is a connoisseur of literary controversy. He is the author of The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups as well as Explaining Hitler. His work has appeared in major national publications in the US including the New York Times and the New Yorker. And as we've said, since 2005, he has been involved in email discussions with Dmitri Nabokov, and public articles imploring Dmitri not to burn the Laura manuscript have appeared in the New York Observer and the online magazine Slate. He joins The Book Show from a New York studio.


And Leland de la Durantaye is an assistant professor of English Literature at Harvard University. He is the author of Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov. He joins the program from his office in Harvard.


Publications
Title: Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian YearsAuthor: Brian BoydPublisher: Vintage, 1993ISBN-13 9780-0998-6220-8

Title: Vladimir Nabokov: The American YearsAuthor: Brian BoydPublisher: Princeton University Press, 1993ISBN-13 9780-6910-2471-4

Title: The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace CoupsAuthor: Ron RosenbaumPublisher: Random House (US), 2008ISBN-13 9780-8129-7836-0

Title: Explaining HitlerAuthor: Ron RosenbaumPublisher: Pan Macmillan, 1999ISBN-13 9780-3337-5078-0

Title: Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir NabokovAuthor: Leland de la DurantayePublisher: Cornell University Press, 2007ISBN-13 9780-8014-4563-7



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