MetaFilter posts tagged with Nabokov

A Creature of Infinite Melancholy

Lutoslawski — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:39:34 -0800

LIFE magazine presents previously unpublished photos of Vladimir Nabokov, taken by Carl Mydens in 1959.

Nabokov's unfinished final novel to be published

Houyhnhnm — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:16:13 -0800

The wait is over! Random House will publish Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novel, The Original of Laura: (Dying Is Fun), on November 3, 2009, with "removable facsimiles of the index cards" on which the novel was written. As previously discussed on MetaFilter, Dmitri Nabokov's decision to publish the unfinished novel against his father's wishes has been controversial, but the BBC has already called it the "literary event of 2009".

The Texture of Time

mattbucher — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:33:15 -0800

Nabokov and the Moment of Truth. VN talks about metaphors of time, great books, and reads the first line of Lolita. “I’ve been perplexed and amused by fabricated notions about so-called Great Books. That, for instance, Mann’s asinine Death in Venice, or Pasternak’s melodramatic, vilely written Doctor Zhivago, or Faulkner’s corncobby chronicles can be considered masterpieces, or at least what journalists term Great Books, is to me the same sort of absurd delusion as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair.”

Users of Covers and Cozies, Ready-Made Souls in Platic Bags, Negligible Generalities

mattbucher — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:03:07 -0800

Vladimir Nabokov discusses Lolita with Lionel Trilling. The moderator is Pierre Berton of the CBC.

UK retailer website betrays the little children / ignorance

NinjaTadpole — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:00:37 -0800

Buying a new bed for your daughter?. How about this little number, with a cheeky, precocious, contemporary culture-aware name. And pull-out desk, did I mention the built-in cupboard?
Mothers aren't concerned about the pull-out desk; they're concerned about the young girls' bed being called "Lolita". A spokesman for the company, Woolworths, told the Times "What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either. We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now." The item has now been removed from the Woolworths site, the fate of the spokesman is undisclosed.

Should Dmitri burn Laura?

dawson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:42:19 -0800

"Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture." "It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died." The Original of Laura was inherited by his son Dmitri Nabokov nearly 21 years ago. Now Dmitri is 73 and will soon publish the manuscript, or following his father's dying request, burn it. Which is greater, the obligation to V.N., or the obligation to art?

Yes, have some.

Captaintripps — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:19:03 -0800

The Ecstasy of Influence, A Plagiarism

Interviews with Vladimir Nabokov

ori — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:04:43 -0800

Lib.ru maintains a delectable archive of interviews, conducted in English, with Vladimir Nabokov. Scroll down for the English.