Word: nabokovã
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...phrase of choice in the marketing materials, but the truth is that “Laura” is hardly more than an assemblage of disconnected scribblings; reading diligently, one can get through the entire thing in under an hour. The difference in quality between this and Nabokov??s other works, too, is painfully clear. However much Nabokov??s other posthumously published work “The Enchanter” existed primarily as a sketch for “Lolita,” the stave of its aesthetic virtuosity was enough to ward off doubters...
...posthumous publication of Nabokov??s uncompleted last novel “The Original of Laura” thus comes as an uneasy blessing. There are characteristic moments of stylistic brilliance, but admiring them is a bit like calling attention to the gilt cornices of a house left lacking a door. Roughly the first half of the book is devoted to Flora, a grown Lolita-type, bored with her marriage to a psychologist named Philip Wild and carrying out numerous affairs. Meanwhile, an obsessive former flame is writing an erotic novel about her titled “My Laura...
Indeed, great ethical question marks surround the matter of whether “Laura” ought to have been published at all. Nabokov??s last wish was that it be burnt should he die before its completion, a worst-case scenario that came to pass in 1977 when the complications of fever took him in Switzerland. The literary world at once divided in two: the “publish” camp happy to get their hands on whatever they could from the man they considered a genius, and their “perish” antagonists...
...nymphomaniac, or all three. Philip Wild is not only morbidly obese, but can be seen walking striped cats on leashes down the street. Flora is groped at age 12 by an older man named “Hubert H. Hubert” (many characters are lifted near-wholesale from Nabokov??s other books). And embarrassing puns abound—a miniature chess set is given to Laura because “she knew the moves,” a “potentate is potent” until the age of 80—which simply never would...
...this seems trivial, there’s no doubt that we should be grateful for the unpredicted survival of Nabokov??s incomplete final novel “The Original of Laura,” finally published a few weeks ago. Despite Nabokov??s request that it be posthumously burnt, his family suddenly concluded a tortured 30-year debate this fall by deciding to grant the public access to the fragments. Reviewers rightly note that the book falls far short of being a “Pale Fire” or “Lolita?...