Some weeks ago I found an article in the newspaper about Dmitri Nabokov's dilemma, this being the question of following his father will (Vladimir Nabokov), consisting on burning the manuscript of what would be his last novel (The original of Laura), or to save it for future generations, disobeying the parental deathbed request.
The article was a translation of a Ron Rosenbaum’s piece originally published in The Spectator, that after some research in the internet I found to be an old one, with further develop nowadays.
I had the chance to read there some great insights relating the plot of this play with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, finding specially appealing what concerns to haunting ghosts, you’ll see why by the end of this letter.
However, what I find must interesting is the story itself, rather than the fate of the manuscript. I stand, in a given case, for the preservation of, not an original manuscript, but a compelling academic gossip.
As often happens, is far from the field where the problem were born that one may find the best answers –or at least the must amusing ones.
I just heard a comment from a student of McGill University making a resemblance of this matter with the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment, regarding the impact of media and critics beholding this manuscript –so far only a speculative manuscript, just as the Schrodinger’s Cat- and then making it public, as it seems to be their whish:
“think of Vladmir Nabokov as a cat and then you’ll have to accept that the final reading of his corpus (corpse) depends entirely on the perception of a sinlge particle...”
One of the few arguments I have heard -out of the academic circle- in favor of the publication of the manuscript, as well as the opening of the subject to the public sphere, was sustained on John von Neumann’s theory of games (...game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others).
If I undesrtand correctly, so far, the Dmitri’s dilemma is a Zero-sum kind of game, where “a player benefits only at the equal expense of others” and “one wins exactly the amount one's opponents lose”, this meaning that, if based on the current structure, the fate of the manuscript is reduced to only two simple options: it gets destroyed or not.
The argument states that taking the manuscript out of the bank vault would actually add some extra layers of complexity to the game, and place it in the non-zero-sum games category, making possible to save part of the inheritance, no matter what final decision Dmitri would take.
So far, my favorite solution to this problem would be the one “executed” by Jeff Edmunds, editor of Zembla (a Web site devoted to Nabokov, hosted by the University Libraries at Penn State University).
I owe to Mr. Rosenbaum’s the knoledge of this brilliant performance, so I’ll paste here some of his words to let you read by yourself his great description of Mr. Edmunds trick:
“(...) Edmunds has a unique role in the controversy over Laura. Back in 1998, he wrote a brilliant Nabokovian pastiche, one that he initially introduced in the pages of a bogus scholarly paper supposedly written by an invented scholar (invented, that is, by Edmunds) called "Michel Desommelier." "Desommelier" claimed he had received the fragments of Laura from a young nurse who'd attended a fatally ill Nabokov, who, in his delirium, was reciting passages from his unfinished work.
I've read Edmunds' pastiche, and it's impressive and smart, but Edmunds had more up his sleeve. He called my attention to the fact that a scholarly print publication called The Nabokovian had printed, in 1999, under curious circumstances, two nearly page-long passages that the editors of The Nabokovian claimed had been taken from Laura. In fact, the editors explicitly say the two passages were "provided and copyrighted by the Nabokov Estate," and there has never, to my knowledge, been any dispute about their provenance from the estate in the decade that's followed.
The passages appeared in The Nabokovian as part of a "Nabokov Prose-Alike Centennial Contest," conducted in coordination with the respected Nabokov-L listserv. The contest involved publication of five passages of prose, three of which were fake—imitations of Nabokov—and two of which were said to be real. In the subsequent issue of The Nabokovian, in which the contest results were announced, the magazine stated that the two real passages were excerpts from The Original of Laura”.
...I just can’t help imagine people going to Mr. Edmunds’s house, asking for trick or treat, and he giving them both in the shape of a riddle.
Just to finish let me tell you what I think to be the possible answer to this puzzle.
I got a clipping from the Globe and Mail with an article written by Gary Michael Dault towards a exibition (Beyond Love and Democracy) that took place in Toronto three years ago. It contains the description of an artwork (the context of the show is Photography, but I’m not really sure if calling this piece a photographic work would fit; funny, thou it’s made of photographs, they are not meant to be seen...).
After reading the translation of the article written by Ron Rosenbaum I cut it from the newspaper and put it with other clippings I have come to collect. When I was taking a glance over the clips, I saw the name of the piece I was just telling you about, and that made me put the pieces together: “Walking with the Ghost”.
This is a box with the shape of a book, containing a text printed over photographic paper. The paper has been developed, but not fixed, which means that if one opens the “book” to read the text, would start its destruction process, allowing to watch it burn (in the photographic sense) while it slowly disappears at our very eyes.
This method would allow Mr. Dmitri to preserve the text in the sake of future generations, and also to burn it, as wished by the author, if it ever comes to light.
The article was a translation of a Ron Rosenbaum’s piece originally published in The Spectator, that after some research in the internet I found to be an old one, with further develop nowadays.
I had the chance to read there some great insights relating the plot of this play with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, finding specially appealing what concerns to haunting ghosts, you’ll see why by the end of this letter.
However, what I find must interesting is the story itself, rather than the fate of the manuscript. I stand, in a given case, for the preservation of, not an original manuscript, but a compelling academic gossip.
As often happens, is far from the field where the problem were born that one may find the best answers –or at least the must amusing ones.
I just heard a comment from a student of McGill University making a resemblance of this matter with the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment, regarding the impact of media and critics beholding this manuscript –so far only a speculative manuscript, just as the Schrodinger’s Cat- and then making it public, as it seems to be their whish:
“think of Vladmir Nabokov as a cat and then you’ll have to accept that the final reading of his corpus (corpse) depends entirely on the perception of a sinlge particle...”
One of the few arguments I have heard -out of the academic circle- in favor of the publication of the manuscript, as well as the opening of the subject to the public sphere, was sustained on John von Neumann’s theory of games (...game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others).
If I undesrtand correctly, so far, the Dmitri’s dilemma is a Zero-sum kind of game, where “a player benefits only at the equal expense of others” and “one wins exactly the amount one's opponents lose”, this meaning that, if based on the current structure, the fate of the manuscript is reduced to only two simple options: it gets destroyed or not.
The argument states that taking the manuscript out of the bank vault would actually add some extra layers of complexity to the game, and place it in the non-zero-sum games category, making possible to save part of the inheritance, no matter what final decision Dmitri would take.
So far, my favorite solution to this problem would be the one “executed” by Jeff Edmunds, editor of Zembla (a Web site devoted to Nabokov, hosted by the University Libraries at Penn State University).
I owe to Mr. Rosenbaum’s the knoledge of this brilliant performance, so I’ll paste here some of his words to let you read by yourself his great description of Mr. Edmunds trick:
“(...) Edmunds has a unique role in the controversy over Laura. Back in 1998, he wrote a brilliant Nabokovian pastiche, one that he initially introduced in the pages of a bogus scholarly paper supposedly written by an invented scholar (invented, that is, by Edmunds) called "Michel Desommelier." "Desommelier" claimed he had received the fragments of Laura from a young nurse who'd attended a fatally ill Nabokov, who, in his delirium, was reciting passages from his unfinished work.
I've read Edmunds' pastiche, and it's impressive and smart, but Edmunds had more up his sleeve. He called my attention to the fact that a scholarly print publication called The Nabokovian had printed, in 1999, under curious circumstances, two nearly page-long passages that the editors of The Nabokovian claimed had been taken from Laura. In fact, the editors explicitly say the two passages were "provided and copyrighted by the Nabokov Estate," and there has never, to my knowledge, been any dispute about their provenance from the estate in the decade that's followed.
The passages appeared in The Nabokovian as part of a "Nabokov Prose-Alike Centennial Contest," conducted in coordination with the respected Nabokov-L listserv. The contest involved publication of five passages of prose, three of which were fake—imitations of Nabokov—and two of which were said to be real. In the subsequent issue of The Nabokovian, in which the contest results were announced, the magazine stated that the two real passages were excerpts from The Original of Laura”.
...I just can’t help imagine people going to Mr. Edmunds’s house, asking for trick or treat, and he giving them both in the shape of a riddle.
Just to finish let me tell you what I think to be the possible answer to this puzzle.
I got a clipping from the Globe and Mail with an article written by Gary Michael Dault towards a exibition (Beyond Love and Democracy) that took place in Toronto three years ago. It contains the description of an artwork (the context of the show is Photography, but I’m not really sure if calling this piece a photographic work would fit; funny, thou it’s made of photographs, they are not meant to be seen...).
After reading the translation of the article written by Ron Rosenbaum I cut it from the newspaper and put it with other clippings I have come to collect. When I was taking a glance over the clips, I saw the name of the piece I was just telling you about, and that made me put the pieces together: “Walking with the Ghost”.
This is a box with the shape of a book, containing a text printed over photographic paper. The paper has been developed, but not fixed, which means that if one opens the “book” to read the text, would start its destruction process, allowing to watch it burn (in the photographic sense) while it slowly disappears at our very eyes.
This method would allow Mr. Dmitri to preserve the text in the sake of future generations, and also to burn it, as wished by the author, if it ever comes to light.
