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The ghost of Vladimir Nabokov: "I told you to burn that damn book!"
I was troubled when I first read in the New York Times that Vladimir Nabokov’s final, unfinished novel (The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun)) was published against his explicit instructions. At the end of his life, Nabokov told his wife, Vera, to destroy Laura if he had not finished it before he died. Because she failed to carry out this task, Laura fell into the hands of Nabokov’s son, Dmitri. Dmitri, now in his mid-70s, decided to hand over the notes containing his father’s final creative efforts to a publisher (Knopf) because he felt his father would not “have opposed the release of Laura once Laura had survived the hum of time this long.” Representing what Dmitri claims is “the most concentrated distillation” of his father’s creativity, Laura consists of a series of index cards and notes packaged in a fancy, expensive book. It’s not really a novel but more of a peek into a writer’s creative process.
But should it have been published?
At first I thought “oh hell no” and was very angered by what I interpreted as Dmitri’s callous disregard for his father’s final wishes. But then I read Nathaniel Rich’s article on The Daily Beast. Rich, who has actually read the book (unlike me), says that “to describe The Original of Laura as a novel would be like mistaking a construction site for a cathedral” and calls the three year public debate over its publication “silly, meretricious” and “waged on false grounds.”
Here’s what I think: Read more »
Imagine you are a doctor. Let’s say you have known you wanted to be a doctor ever since you were a little kid, attended many years of school to become a doctor, and experience the greatest possible level of joy and fulfillment in your life when you are practicing medicine. However, let’s say that the society in which you live expects doctors to work for free. Occasionally doctors can secure gigs that pay, but it’s normal for doctors to hold down other jobs so that they can support themselves enough to practice medicine. As such, a typical day for a doctor could include: getting up early, enduring a long commute, spending 8 hours in an office working a job that consumes energy yet doesn’t stimulate intellectually, grabbing some dinner after work, and THEN performing open heart surgery at night.
Ever fall in love with someone and then find out that they’re kind of an ass? Yeah…me too. The first Rilke that ever crossed my hands was Letters to a Young Poet, and I still remember the effect it had on me. I felt as if I had found my soul mate….if he had been in the room (and alive) I would have jumped him on the spot. There is a vibrant grace and poignant longing in every bit of Rilke I have read, and the first elegy of his Duino Elegies has the power to hit some g-spot deep in my heart and bring me to tears. So finding out that he was actually kind of a whiney, narcissistic brat was analogous to finding out as a kid that Santa Claus didn’t really exist.
The claims set forth in Robert McGuire’s 
I have a new addiction. Oh, and it’s so delicious. I just can’t seem to get enough. Each fix is only temporary and leaves me wanting more. But thankfully this addiction is free and doesn’t harm my body in any way. And it’s so simple, you’d never guess: 
If you have never heard of it, then you live under a rock. If you have never read it, then there is a big hole in your life where this book should be. Holden Caulfield’s search to find his place in the world has long been hailed as the quintessential tale of teen angst. But for me, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye far surpasses such a general assessment. The entire story hovers above a violent undercurrent of energy, and it feels like Holden is going to explode if just one more person disappoints him or one more thing goes wrong. Holden’s voice puts me in a trance…I get pulled into his world of “phonies” and “slobs” and I absorb his loneliness and let it mingle with my own. It’s the story of not being able to find a single place where you feel you belong. Rye was one of the most censored and controversial books of the 20th Century, and as a result it possesses an almost mythical level of mystique. People are still fascinated with Holden, the ultimate modern antihero. And Salinger has only enhanced the book’s mystique by proving himself to be one of the most reclusive writers of the last century. He has hidden from the world for decades…refusing to grant interviews, not publishing any new work, and suing those who try to do anything with his existing work. It seems as if, like Holden Caulfield, Salinger thinks we’re all a bunch of phonies and he just wants us to leave him alone so that he can die. Well, some dude in Sweden 
How would you feel if the deepest recesses of your soul became material for your therapist’s next novel? I suppose it’s possible you would feel honored – hey, at least it means your life is in some way interesting (unless your therapist’s next novel is entitled, 
Good storytelling is timeless and transformative. For me, nothing beats just sitting down and hearing a damn good story. True, sometimes it’s cool to see random stuff blown up while mutants battle it out on a big movie screen. And sometimes it’s cool to play with fancy electronic gadgets that simulate reality while I avoid my own reality. And sometimes it’s cool to use those fancy electronic gadgets to blow up virtual mutants of my very own. But if you tell me an engaging story with fascinating characters, if you pull me into lives that help me forget (and better understand) my own, and if you get me emotionally invested in the outcome…I am putty in your hands. But is the art of old-fashioned, sitting-around-a-campfire storytelling dead? Can individuals with interesting stories sit on a stage and engage an entire bitter, jaded, New York City audience? Oh hells yeah. I witnessed such a feat when I attended 
