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darwin8u's review
3.0
“What can be sadder than a discouraged artist dying not from his own commonplace maladies, but from the cancer of oblivion?”
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Original of Laura
efface
expunge
erase
delete
rub out
wipe out
obliterate
(dying is fun)
Publishing unfinished novels, art in progress, the aborted (by the author's death/suicide) final work must be a challenge. I think of Kafka's [b:The Trial|17690|The Trial|Franz Kafka|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320399438s/17690.jpg|2965832], DFW's [b:The Pale King|9443405|The Pale King|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1324405497s/9443405.jpg|6498897], Fitzgerald's [b:The Love of the Last Tycoon|16857|The Love of the Last Tycoon|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1321018965s/16857.jpg|1939873], hell ... the last 50 years of Salinger. These books are funky teases. They leave you wondering where they might have ended if the final meal had not been interrupted. I hear J. Alfred bleating for all dead authors: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all."
OoL (as published) is a fascinating piece of book design. Nabokov's original note cards are inserted into heavy weight pages (about 120lb card stock). Thus, a heavy HB book actually only contains about 100 cards/pages. Nabokov's son has done his best to order and organize these cards into some form of coherence and narrative structure. It kinda works. Any other unfinished Nabokov novel wouldn't fit this format or technique, but this is a novel about an artist erasing himself in some form of trance-like state.
Starting always at his feet.
Erasing himself again and again. Sweet suicide and anxious resurrection.
The ultimate dissolution, delicious self-irradication. Let's start with those toes, Sir.
Anyway, OoL (as written) fits. The end has been erased by Nabokov's own death. As you read (quickly because there are only 100+ note cards, written on one side) the book loses focus, themes return, run together, and disappear. There isn't enough here. Your mind plays tricks. You create narratives that fill in the gaps. You are left with fragments and then -- too soon -- Nabokov has disappeared. The book is done. Feel free to pop out the cards (another Book Design trick) and rearrange and read them at your leisure. Or just let this last Nabokov fade, and slide sweetly back into black.
Thinking away on[e]self
a mel[t]ing sensation
an envahissement of delicious dissolution (what a miracu-
lous appropriate noun!)
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Original of Laura
efface
expunge
erase
delete
rub out
wipe out
obliterate
(dying is fun)
Publishing unfinished novels, art in progress, the aborted (by the author's death/suicide) final work must be a challenge. I think of Kafka's [b:The Trial|17690|The Trial|Franz Kafka|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320399438s/17690.jpg|2965832], DFW's [b:The Pale King|9443405|The Pale King|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1324405497s/9443405.jpg|6498897], Fitzgerald's [b:The Love of the Last Tycoon|16857|The Love of the Last Tycoon|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1321018965s/16857.jpg|1939873], hell ... the last 50 years of Salinger. These books are funky teases. They leave you wondering where they might have ended if the final meal had not been interrupted. I hear J. Alfred bleating for all dead authors: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all."
OoL (as published) is a fascinating piece of book design. Nabokov's original note cards are inserted into heavy weight pages (about 120lb card stock). Thus, a heavy HB book actually only contains about 100 cards/pages. Nabokov's son has done his best to order and organize these cards into some form of coherence and narrative structure. It kinda works. Any other unfinished Nabokov novel wouldn't fit this format or technique, but this is a novel about an artist erasing himself in some form of trance-like state.
Starting always at his feet.
Erasing himself again and again. Sweet suicide and anxious resurrection.
The ultimate dissolution, delicious self-irradication. Let's start with those toes, Sir.
Anyway, OoL (as written) fits. The end has been erased by Nabokov's own death. As you read (quickly because there are only 100+ note cards, written on one side) the book loses focus, themes return, run together, and disappear. There isn't enough here. Your mind plays tricks. You create narratives that fill in the gaps. You are left with fragments and then -- too soon -- Nabokov has disappeared. The book is done. Feel free to pop out the cards (another Book Design trick) and rearrange and read them at your leisure. Or just let this last Nabokov fade, and slide sweetly back into black.
Thinking away on[e]self
a mel[t]ing sensation
an envahissement of delicious dissolution (what a miracu-
lous appropriate noun!)
quintusmarcus's review
1.0
Fragments of a glimpse into the dying mind of a dirty old man. Thoroughly wretched and unilluminating. Dmitri should have burned it.
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