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Zusatztext “In these pages readers will find bright flashes of Nabokovian wordplay and surreal! Magritte-like descriptions." — The New York Times "Tantalizing! fascinating. . . . A generous gift to readers. . . . Filled with sly wit and memorable images." — The Christian Science Monitor "A beautifully printed objet d'art in its own right! the book of previously unpublished writings offers a thrilling insight into the great writer's creative process! 28 years after his death." — The Kansas City Star "A unique chance to see the master out of control. . . . It's like seeing an unfinished Michelangelo sculpture--one of those rough! half-formed giants straining to step out of its marble block. It's even more powerful! to a different part of the brain! than the polish of a David or a Lolita." — New York magazine "This is no ordinary manuscript. . . . The Original of Laura is an astonishingly accurate representation of a genius' shards. But! my God! what shards these are. What devotee of Nabokov! much less mere reader! could possibly regret Dmitri Nabokov's decision to give us this gift? . . . What we have is a novelistic genius's fever dream—one of the great literary talents of his century aswirl with ideas and last thoughts." — The Buffalo News "Nabokov's last metafictive parable. . . . One of the most interesting short stories Nabokov never wrote." — San Francisco Chronicle "Bits and pieces of Laura will beckon and beguile Nabokov fans! who will find many of the author’s perennial themes and obsessions percolating through the story of Philip. . . . In these pages readers will find bright flashes of Nabokovian wordplay and surreal! Magritte-like descriptions." — The New York Times “Undeniably handsome. . . . Nabokov’s ornate vocabulary is predictably fun! especially when applied to body parts.” — The Guardian (London) “The more I reread it! the more I discover and admire. . . . His style may be most extraordinary not so much as prose but as story. . . . For centuries! I predict! scholars of narrative will focus on the opening chapter of The Original of Laura as proof of the new finds to be made in fiction—in characterization! setting! action! speech! narration.” –Brian Boyd! The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Informationen zum Autor Vladimir Nabokov Klappentext When Nabokov died in 1977! he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten index cards that made up the rough draft of his final and unfinished novel! "The Original of Laura." But the manuscript was never destroyed and three decades later! the novelist's son! Dmitri! agreed to allow publication of the narrative. Excerpted from the introduction by Dmitri Nabokov As a tepid spring settled on lakeside Switzerland in 1977, I was called from abroad to my father’s bedside in a Lausanne clinic. During recovery from what is considered a banal operation, he had apparently been infected with a hospital bacillus that severely lessened his resistance. Such obvious signals of deterioration as dramatically reduced sodium and potassium levels had been totally ignored. It was high time to intervene if he was to be kept alive. Transfer to the Vaud Cantonal University Hospital was immediately arranged, and a long and harrowing search for the noisome germ began. My father had fallen on a hillside in Davos while pursuing his beloved pastime of entomology, and had gotten stuck in an awkward position on the steep slope as cabin-carloads of tourists responded with guffaws, misinterpreting as a holiday prank the cries for help and waves of a butterfly net. Officialdom can be ruthless; he was subsequently reprimanded by the hotel staff for stumbling back into the lobby, supported by two bellhops, with his shorts in disarray. Ther...
