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