Nabokov's final literary striptease

By Stephen Smith
Newsnight Culture Correspondent

In an exclusive interview, the son of novelist Vladimir Nabokov tells Newsnight why he is defying his father's wishes to posthumously publish the controversial writer's final novel.

After the death of the notorious libertine Lord Byron, who was mad, bad and dangerous to know, his memoirs were thrown into the fire at the offices of his publishers John Murray in Edinburgh, in 1824.

The poet's literary executors decided to destroy Byron's journals in order to protect his reputation.

Byron's short but eventful life had taken him to Switzerland, among other places, and his Prisoner of Chillon was inspired by the brooding medieval castle of the same name on Lake Geneva.

A hundred and fifty years or so after Byron's death, another writer associated with sexual controversy passed away on the banks of the lake, posing a conundrum to his own executors.

He was Vladimir Nabokov, author of the brilliant but scandalous Lolita (1955), a blackly comic account of middle-aged Humbert Humbert's infatuation with a 12-year-old girl.

At the time of his death in 1977, Nabokov was working on another novel, said to deal with some of the same challenging if uncomfortable themes.

Last wish

The novelist Kingsley Amis, reviewing Lolita, had written mischievously, "Where's all the sex, then?"


My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn't name a book one intends to destroy.
Dmitri Nabokov

It was rumoured that "all the sex" was in this last book.

Nabokov made his wife Vera promise him on his deathbed that the manuscript would go the same way as Byron's diaries.

The book never appeared, and the world was entitled to think that it had read the entire corpus of the dazzling stylist.

But Vera Nabokov never fulfilled her husband's last wish. She agonised about what to do with the incomplete novel, while it gathered dust in the vaults of a Swiss bank.

She could not bring herself to commit the manuscript to the flames. On her own death, the burden passed to the Nabokovs' only child, Dmitri.

A man who has combined the careers of opera singer and racing driver, Dmitri was also a respected and assiduous translator and editor of his father's works.

But it seems he could no more resolve the dilemma of Nabokov's last book than could his mother.

Subject of speculation

Over the years, and particularly since the advent of the internet, the fate of the novel has been much debated by Nabokov readers and academics.

With something of his father's talent for creating a stir, Dmitri has given the impression that he was prepared to see the book disappear for good, only to leave others with a strong sense that publication was in the offing.

Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov's final, incomplete novel is to be published in 2009.

The affair of Nabokov's last book has become a kind of literary striptease, with tantalising glimpses of this sensation flitting into public view. Its title was said to be The Original of Laura.

A scholarly journal devoted to Nabokov studies ran a competition inviting readers to submit prose in the style of the author.

Of the five entries published by the magazine, two were said to be by Nabokov himself, unpublished fragments of Laura.

Its plot apparently concerns a portly academic called Philip Wild, and Flora, his much slimmer, "wildly promiscuous" wife.

Flora catches Wild's eye because of her resemblance to a young woman he had once been in love with. Wild is preoccupied by his own mortality, and resolves to obliterate himself from the toes upward, through the power of meditation.

Death, be it ever so unlikely, is a theme of the book, as it is in so much of Nabokov.

All the principal characters in Lolita are dead by the time Humbert tells his tale, Humbert included.

Some biographers have traced this fascination to the hapless end of Nabokov's own father, a Russian noblemen and politician, killed by a bullet meant for someone else with whom he happened to be sharing a platform at the time.

Finally, at the age of 73, Dmitri Nabokov has said that his father's last book will be spared the bonfire. Indeed, it will be published next year in what is likely to be the literary event of 2009.

Dmitri and Vladimir Nabokov
Dmitri Nabokov pictured with his father, Vladimir, in 1961.

Newsnight went to meet Dmitri at his house in Montreux, where he talked for the first time in a television interview about what led him at last to his decision.

"My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn't name a book one intends to destroy."

Of his father's last wish, Dmitri said: "He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he didn't see death staring him in the face. He certainly would not have wanted it destroyed. He would have finished it."

Dividing opinions


It's perfectly straightforward. Nabokov wanted it burnt, so burn it.
Tom Stoppard

With all due ceremony, a white-gloved attendant shimmered into Dmitri's sitting room, bearing the book from the vaults. It consisted of a grey wallet containing dozens of hand-written index cards.

It was Nabokov's practice, having conceived of a novel in his head, to plot it out on cards in longhand, before producing finished pages.

Because of Dmitri's unsleeping filial protectiveness, not to mention the terms of his publishing deal, we were not allowed to read the masterpiece through, let alone film it to anything like its full extent.

The book will be published unfinished, just as the master left it.

The literary world is in two minds about it.

John Banville, winner of the Booker prize, worries that it might compare unfavourably to Nabokov's greatest achievements. But he told us it is as fascinating and compelling as unpublished work by Joyce or Beckett would be.

Tom Stoppard says: "It's perfectly straightforward. Nabokov wanted it burnt, so burn it."

Scholars note that Nabokov had form in this area, once wishing to see a match applied to a novella of his called The Enchanter, ironically a kind of prequel to Lolita.

Perhaps it is true that his final work is even more scandalising than the earlier book, that it has "all the sex" in it.

The last of the veils hasn't quite slipped from Laura yet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7736449.stm

Dependente De Sex Sau Amante

Căutarea plăcerii este axa în jurul căreia s-a rotit de-a lungul timpului istoria fiinţei umane, dar în ce măsură este dependentă de sex o femeie care dă frâu liber propriului libido?

Elisabeta I a Marii Britanii, Erzsébet Báthory, Ecaterina cea Mare, Pauline Bonaparte, George Sand, Lola Montes, Contesa de Castiglione, Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Natalie Barney, Mata Hari, Isadora Duncan, Alma Mahler, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Anaïs Nin, Joan Crawford, Josephine Baker, Edith Piaf sau Janis Joplin, femei care au trăit pentru şi prin PLĂCERE.

Sexualitatea a fost fundamentală în vieţile lor. Aveau o personalitate puternică pe care şi-au impus-o în faţa uzanţelor şi a codului vremii. Nu au pretins altceva decât să fie ele însele. Paula Izquierdo pătrunde în aspectele vieţii lor sexuale, în cotloanele şi hăţişurile existenţei genului feminin. O carte-mărturie despre obiceiurile şi îndeletnicirile unor femei îndrăzneţe, hotărâte şi inteligente care şi-au urmat propriul drum: fără complexe, fără pudoare.

Erotikos

O celebrare a iubirii, in toate formele ei, dezbracata de orice conventie sau tabu.
Un concept nou si provocator, Erotikos incalca toate interdictele si satisface orice curiozitate. Literotica cea mai rafinata va starni dorintele ascunse si va da o noua viata senzualitatii, dar si fantasmelor. Eseuri care dezvaluie toate secretele artei de a iubi, lucrari de istorie culturala a erotismului ce descifreaza regulile binecunoscutei, dar niciodata discutate in public, etichete sexuale. Pentru ca iubirea e o arta, trebuie celebrata in toate formele ei.

www.nemira.ro

Lady Caligula

O poveste incitanta dintr-o perioada istorica fascinanta, când Caligula, printul libertin si genial, patrona lupanarele si anula legile de cenzura ale predecesorilor sai, iar senzuala împarateasa Messalina, prostituata imperiala, cea mai frumoasa dintre nobilele lupe, se daruia tuturor în micile camere din lupanarele populare. În timpul domniei lui, Caligula a transformat o aripa a palatului imperial într-un bordel cu saloane mari, amenajate în diverse stiluri tematice, unde, în luminile mijite ale lampilor cu ulei, poftele carnale erau de nestavilit. Acest lucru a stârnit foarte multe controverse, dar i-a adus si multa popularitate printre romani.

Lady Caligula este tânara sotie a stapânitorului Romei, prinsa în mrejele intrigilor si a povestilor senzationale tesute la Curtea Imperiala.

Un roman în care sunt explorate teritoriile eroticului fara limite sau oprelisti.

Anais Nin

Foc este o carte a oglinzilor, a jocurilor erotice, a iubirilor paralele (care se hranesc sau se anihileaza reciproc). Un concert de muzica a trupului. Si o vivisectie, pasionala si lucida in acelasi timp, a eului feminin in plin proces de autodezvaluire. Sau poate de automistificare? Sa fie jurnalul o tesatura densa de "minciuni miraculoase", inspirate si menite sa inspire? Exista oare si in scris oanume naturalete a actritei care se joaca pe ea insasi?

"O singura pagina din extraordinarul jurnal al lui Anais Nin contine mai mult erotism, melodrama, fantezie, vis si luciditate decat cele mai multe romane." Booklist

" Foc este un dialog curajos intre carne si spirit." Newsweek

"Nu cred decat in foc. Viata. Foc. Fiind eu insami o flacara, ii inflacarez pe altii. Niciodata moarte. Foc si viata" Anais Nin


Incest. Din Jurnalul dragostei (necenzurat)
raftul denisei


Volumul Incest face parte din cel mai faimos jurnal erotic intrat in literatura secolului XX, marturia unei femei capabile sa isi exprime dorintele secrete cu acelasi abandon "amoral" care a apartinut dintotdeauna barbatilor. Anais Nin developeaza filmul incendiar al unei pasiuni care incalca toate tabuurile. Astfel ia nastere portretul amantului suprem: Joaquin Nin, adevaratul Don Juan, care cunoaste -- si nesocoteste -- regulile seductiei.

"Incest este o fascinanta incursiune la cald in mintea unei femei narcisiste, pasionale, lucide si extrem de complexe." Library Journal




Henry si June: din Jurnalul dragostei necenzurat
raftul denisei

Carte ecranizata in 1990 in regia lui Philip Kaufman, cu Fred Ward, Uma Thurman si Maria de Medeiros in rolurile principale

Anais Nin iubeste pasional, dincolo de conventii si pudori mostenite. Il iubeste pe Henry Miller pentru geniul si senzualitatea lui. Pe June Miller pentru frumusete si mister. Pe Hugo, sotul ei, pentru tandretea cu care o protejeaza. Pe Eduardo, varul de care a fost indragostita in copilarie, pentru farmecul lui de efeb. In jurnal, fantasmele se intalnesc cu luciditatea, iar rezultatul este o viziune unica asupra erotismului si fidelitatii.

"Dintre toate femeile pe care le-am cunoscut, nici una nu se apropie de Anais Nin prin gratie si frumusete. O aristocrata. Dar si o scriitoare cu talent extraordinar. Ea apartine acum intregii lumi." (Henry Miller)

"O descriere exceptionala a trairilor erotice ale unei femei care nu poate gandi in clisee... O carte foarte senzuala si cu adevarat revolutionara." (Alice Walker)

"Henry si June surprinde desteptarea erotica a lui Anais Nin. In acelasi timp pasional si lucid, bland si crud, acest jurnal este incercarea suprema a unei femei cu o inteligenta sclipitoare de a dialoga cu sine insasi." (New York Times Book Review)

Romane Serda & Renaud - Anais Nin

Delta lui Venus

Cititorul care paseste in lumea imbibata de erotism a lui Anais Nin trebuie sa lase prejudecatile la intrare: autoarea incearca sa deschida acea cutie a Pandorei care este sexualitatea feminina, infatisand-o sub masti felurite, insa fara tuse clinice sau pudibonderii suspecte. Prostituate, voyeuri, frigide, lesbiene, hermafroditi, artisti, femei indragostite, barbati de o sexualitate uluitoare -- universul lui Anais Nin functioneaza dupa legea instinctului ridicat la rang de arta.
"Dintre toate femeile pe care le-am cunoscut, nici una nu se apropie de Anais Nin prin gratie si frumusete. O aristocrata. Dar si o scriitoare cu un talent extraordinar. Ea apartine acum intregii lumi." (Henry Miller)

"Delta lui Venus este o manifestare exuberanta a imaginatiei erotice." (New York Times Book Review)

"Inventiva, sofisticata, o carte a rafinamentului senzual." (Cosmopolitan)

"Varietatea si intensitatea experientelor sexuale din Delta lui Venus nu au fost niciodata, pana la Anais Nin, filtrate prin sensibilitatea unei femei." (The American Book Review)

Henry and June

Anul 1931, Paris. Scriitoarea Anais Nin îl întîlneşte pe Henry Miller, dar şi pe soţia acestuia, June. Atrasă de Henry, tînăra Anais îşi împarte existenţa între soţ şi Henry. Acesta lucrează la primul său roman, “Tropicul Cancerului”, o pseudobiografie inspirată de June. Viaţa sentimentală a celor patru devine, o dată cu trecerea timpului, tot mai complicată. Nominalizare la Oscar în 1991.