Nabokov's lost novel to be published

Shortly before Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he asked his family to destroy his last, unfinished novel. Following his death his family quarreled about whether to honor his dying wish. Finally they locked the book away in a Swiss bank vault for three decades. Until now.

In a decision that's been very controversial among critics and scholars, Nabokov's son, Dmitri Nabokov, has decided to publish the book. (Click the photo at left to pre-order a copy from Amazon.)

Nabokov wrote his novels on index cards, frequently changing the order of the cards as he worked. According to his diaries he had his last book finished in his mind, but then he died before he could complete his work. He had various titles for the book, including The Original of Laura, The Opposite of Laura and Dying is Fun. The published version will be called The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun) and will consist of over 100 facsimile, removable index cards.

The Times of London summarized the book thusly:

Philip Wild, an enormously corpulent scholar, is married to a slender, flighty and wildly promiscuous woman called Flora. Flora initially appealed to Wild because of another woman that he’d been in love with, Aurora Lee. Death and what lies beyond it, a theme which fascinated Nabokov from a very young age, are central. The book opens at a party and there follow four continuous scenes, after which the novel becomes more fragmented. It is not clear how old Wild is, but he is preoccupied with his own death and sets about obliterating himself from the toes upwards through meditation. A sort of deliberate self-inflicted self-erasure.

Dmitri Nabokov is attracting a lot of criticism for his decision, but any decision he made would be controversial. We know that Vladimir Nabokov didn't want this book published. But Kafka wanted his own work destroyed, and the world would be a poorer place if that had happened.

The book hits stores this November.

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