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Fwd: Burn 'Laura', Dmitri...
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Dear Don and List,
I trust VN's judgement. If he wasn't ready to show 'Laura'
to the world, then too bad for us. If it had been finished and published,
would the crits have tucked it into the 'Late Nabokov' pigeonhole along
with
'LATH' and 'Transparent Things' rather than enthroning it alongside
'Lolita'?
We'll never know. I feel that burning 'Laura' would leave the academics
(and the tabloid journos) one less bone to chew over. As for the ordinary
reader,
she still has a legacy of incredible richness in the work that VN saw fit
to release.
There's more than enough in his oeuvre to satisfy sympathetic seekers of
aesthetic bliss,
as well as forensic allusion-hunters working along the fringes of
literature
with dustpan, broom and microscope. So let's burn 'Laura', along with the
Spanish
pulp story by von Wotsisname. It's far too late to incinerate 'Lolita',
thank goodness.
Best,
Tom (Rymour)
----- End forwarded message -----
I trust VN's judgement. If he wasn't ready to show 'Laura'
to the world, then too bad for us. If it had been finished and published,
would the crits have tucked it into the 'Late Nabokov' pigeonhole along
with
'LATH' and 'Transparent Things' rather than enthroning it alongside
'Lolita'?
We'll never know. I feel that burning 'Laura' would leave the academics
(and the tabloid journos) one less bone to chew over. As for the ordinary
reader,
she still has a legacy of incredible richness in the work that VN saw fit
to release.
There's more than enough in his oeuvre to satisfy sympathetic seekers of
aesthetic bliss,
as well as forensic allusion-hunters working along the fringes of
literature
with dustpan, broom and microscope. So let's burn 'Laura', along with the
Spanish
pulp story by von Wotsisname. It's far too late to incinerate 'Lolita',
thank goodness.
Best,
Tom (Rymour)
----- End forwarded message -----