Dmitri Nabokov “has finally broken his silence about the contents” of the late Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, which is set for publication rather than the burning originally called for by the author. And he shows the index cards on which it has written–which have been stored in a Swiss bank vault–to the BBC’s cameras.
He told the BBC, “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. He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he did not see death staring him in the face. He certainly would not have wanted it destroyed. He would have wanted to finish it.”
Dmitri says it’s “the story in part of a brilliant neurologist who is at the same time a fat and physically unappealing man of deep intellect who is oppressed by the exteme infidelity of his much younger wife. At first, playfully, he starts pondering the idea of suicide.”
BBC episode
Independent article