Dying is Fun

Back in November of 2009, it was started that Playboy would be publishing the first look at Vladimir Nabokov's last novel, The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun) - a novel in fragments. Of course I went off and purchased that issue of Playboy - which I still have tucked away on bookshelf. It took me a while, but I eventually purchased a copy of The Original of Laura sometime last year. 

After a few setbacks - this strange dry spell that has come over me - last night, I decided to give the book a try, ignoring the other books I'm currently (supposedly) reading. The last book that took me little time to read was a little novel written by a seventeen-year-old that read like it was written by a seventeen-year-old by the name of Twelve. Of course, Vladimir Nabokov's  writing is several times greater than Nick McDonell's will ever be. 

The novel - written on index cards which were scanned and used in the book (as evidence, I suppose), which are also detachable (which is annoying) - doesn't follow anything linear. That's to be expected, of course, as it appears the book is consisting of notes by the author. However, its deviation - per se - of conventionality doesn't keep it from consuming its reader. At once I was sucked into his prose, very much in the same way that Lolita drew me in when I first read it. 

But because of its - should I say unique? - style, it's hard to come up with an accurate description of the story, let alone a review that would do it justice. The prose - much like that of Lolita - being the only other novel I've read by Nabokov, not including a few short stories here and there during my college years - is quite poetic and well structured. The wording hypnotic at times. It's hard to ignore the aspects - the potential - of how great the novel would have been if Nabokov was able to complete it before his death. The novel mixes in the erotic and a sort of dark comedy of morality - hence the subtitle Dying is Fun. 

While it was never meant to see the light of literary world, I'm glad that Dmitri Nabokov went against his father's wishes and published the novel rather than burn it. And now I but sit an wait until the letters of James Joyce are finally allowed to see the light of day. It's just another year, right?

My Erotica, or My Unquenchable Lust for Books

Monday afternoon, I woke up to find my copy of Coming & Crying at my doorstep. This, as you all know, is the book hunter equivalent to finding a baby in a basket. The book was edited by Melissa Gira Grant and Meaghan O'Connell and I only learned of it after the KickStarter for it had ended. If you're like me, you can purchase a copy here. 

Also, in the mail, my copy of Vladimir Nabokov's The Original of Laura arrived. If you recall, I mentioned the book last year when it was announced that Playboy was going to release an excerpt in their December issue.

After that, I got dressed and headed out with Monica and Binx to book hunt because that's what we do whenever we're together. First stop led us to Georgia's Thrift Shop where I picked up a copy of Brian Keene's Urban Gothic. Afterward, we wound up at Books -n- Things where I picked up a copy of The Stand - the unabridged copy, as I already have the original published piece - and William Gibson's Neuromancer.  

Today was another day of book hunting, where I purchased a copy of Brian Lumley's Maze of Worlds - only a $1.50! - and No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. 

I think that concludes - fingers crossed - my book hunting for the rest of the year. My queue is backed up to next December, I believe. Oh well, until next time, keep on huntin'.

Screen Shot #1

Earlier this year, I posted a link to a bookworm friendly website called What Should I Read Next?, which provides a list of books related to the one you just put down. As a bit of research, I decided what the list would include if I plugged Lolita into it. While all the books seem interesting, it was the third book that caught my attention. Apparently, Ramona Quimby Age 8 is the Nabokov classic's bosom buddy.

Top 10 Unreliable Narrators According to Henry Sutton

Whether or not you agree or disagree with it, Guardian.co.uk has published the top 10 unreliable literary narrators according to Henry Sutton. Drum roll, please? 

10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
09. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
08. The End Of Alice by AM Homes
07. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
06. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
05. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
04. Money by Martin Amis
03. The Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
02. The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
01. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Now go see why.

Playboy features excerpt of a great novelist's final work

The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov:

For 32 years the heirs of Vladimir Nabokov safeguarded the literary giant’s last novel in a vault in Switzerland while they wrestled with his request to destroy the unfinished manuscript. The decision was ultimately left to son Dmitri and deferred till now: This month Alfred A. Knopf will publish The Original of Laura (or Dying Is Fun), an event for readers the world over. Playboy is proud to publish an exclusive excerpt and introduce another of Nabokov’s mystifying and mythic heroines, Flora, the subject of a novel within the novel.

[Flora’s] husband…was a writer… —at least, after a fashion. Fat men beat their wives, it is said, and he certainly looked fierce, when he caught her riffling through his papers. He pretended to slam down a marble paperweight and crush this weak little hand (displaying the little hand in febrile motion). (via)

It took an English professor to tell me I read Lolita wrong the first time. Without so much of explaining to me what I should be looking for when reading it, he turned me away and told me to come back when I read it right. So I did. I sat down a few years after first reading it, grabbed a cup of tea and cracked open the cover again. After that, there was no turning back. In fact, the novel became my go to, my beacon when hitting a block while writing. It's the what-would-Nabokov-do effect.

I have four copies of the book lying around in the house upon different shelves. I'm aware of how creepy that may sound to a few of you who only judged the novel by its content, rather than read it. But it was the book that introduced me to Nabokov's style of writing, and what set the foundation of what I want to write about the world. But don't get me wrong. I'm not attempting in anyway to style my prose in the mannerisms of a great novelist. No, I'm simply using him as a mentor, posthumously.

So when it was announced that Dimitri Nabokov was actually pushing forth with his father's final work, I got the shivers. First came the excitement, then came the fear: I've read incomplete works before (Hemingway, comes to mind) and they're either hit or miss (though I did love Hemingway's, even though it was frowned on by academia - shhh I won't tell if you don't).

Only time will tell if we love or hate the final work by Nabokov. Luckily, you can preview the book in the pages of Playboy (on newsstands now). You can ever get a little peek at porn-turned-mainstream star, Sasha Grey tapping into her inner Lolita.