Surprise. That’s against his deathbed instructions, in case you haven’t been following the controversy.
Nabokov’s last work will not be burned
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As per his request, I will not read it.
Poppycock! If Nabokov wanted it destroyed, he had, I must presume, plenty of opportunity to do so when he was among the living. Now, he has other fish to fry, so to speak. Being a radical myself, I say let all estates revert to the state. Why should the dead dictate to the living? Let them disburse their worldly gains when they are of the world. When they give up the ghost, let them with the ghosts repose!
“Poppycock! If Nabokov wanted it destroyed, he had, I must presume, plenty of opportunity to do so when he was among the living.”
Nonsense. Nabokov was working on it and could not be sure when he would utlimately lose his faculties. That is why he secured the promise that it would be destroyed if unfinished. And that is why this is such a gross act of deceit by his son who could easily have told his father that he was unable to fulfil his instructions which would have given Nabokov the choice of destroying the MS himself and safeguarding his reputation. A horrible act of betrayal to witness. Not that the rest of us need feel bound by any sense of piety towards the great man.
Is this a question of the disposal of property or ideas? Dmitri could easily burn the original after copying it down. Where’s the utility in Victor having told his son a beautiful story while on his deathbed but then swearing Dmitri to secrecy?
And, what would the harm be in having the wishes of the dying ignored after their deaths? Clearly not all of their wishes are worth enforcing (consider the father that passes his house on to his son with the stipulation that he never wear a hat while inside it). The orderly disposal of the property of the dead is one thing, but our desire to adhere to the wishes of the dying generally is another.
Every book ever written is an unfinished manuscript. Just ask the author.
Nabakov may have feared that his last work would be the one by which he
would be ultimately judged, but so many years on, that just isn’t going
to be true.
As a question concerning the wishes of the dead or living, the piece of mind
given by the granting of a dying wish, unfortunately, dies with the mind. I
know we’d all like to achieve immortality through the belief that our
control over the world of the living extend beyond our leaving it, but that
is rarely the case.
“Every book ever written is an unfinished manuscript. Just ask the author.
Nabakov may have feared that his last work would be the one by which he
would be ultimately judged, but so many years on, that just isn’t going
to be true.
As a question concerning the wishes of the dead or living, the piece of mind
given by the granting of a dying wish, unfortunately, dies with the mind. I
know we’d all like to achieve immortality through the belief that our
control over the world of the living extend beyond our leaving it, but that
is rarely the case.”
Point one is false for certain creative types, myself included. Definitely not the Beethoven type, but certainly the John Cage type.
On point two: how do you know?
Doesn’t an author have a creative right to determine what exactly s/he should be judged on in terms of what s/he considers truly finished output?
If he really asked that it be “burnt” (and not something more generic) then he was pretty clearly alluding to the ancient accounts of Virgil’s deathbed request about the Aeneid, and pretty clearly expecting the same result.
To add to Tim Hulsey’s list, A E Housman requested various unpublished works to be destroyed, and then named his brother Laurence as executor in the full knowledge that Laurence would see that they were published. Either he wanted to have his cake and eat it too or he was conflicted.
Nabokov is dead. His wishes no longer matter to us, the living, in any sense except the sentimental. I find few things more abhorrent than the cult of ancestor worship that has arisen in our society through the creation of unbreakable wills, trusteeships, and so forth.
I doesn’t matter whether he thought it was any good or not, or whether he thought it was too personal, or didn’t want his name associated with it, or whatever. He is dead, may be rest in peace, but may the rest of us get on the with business of living our lives on our own terms.
Here’s an extreme example: What if, instead of burning his book, Nabokov wanted his son burned instead? After all, Nabokov created him and raised him for years, and since we must follow the instructions of the deceased, it must be done. If you don’t agree with this, then you must concede that it is the prerogative of the living to ignore the wishes of the deceased.
William the Conqueror, I’m sure, would have wanted the English King to remain an absolute monarch until the end of time. Should Queen Elizabeth dismiss Parliament and resume ruling directly, because it was the wishes of a dead man? No, of course not.
I for one will not live in a necrocracy to be governed by the dead.
Any reader who wants to read this can now do so, knowing that Nabakov did not consider it up to his exacting standards for publication, but also that the author could not bring himself personally to remove it from the world and that he therefore suspected it of having some worth. Any reader who wishes to abide by Nabakov’s deathbed wish may neglect to read it. Both readers are respectable, and I’m glad Dmitri has offered us this choice.
I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living : that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it — Thomas Jefferson
“Logical follow-up for those who claim that the dead’s wishes have no bearing on the living: should the government respect wills?”
That concerns the allocation of assets, not what to do with said assets beyond allocation.
Honestly, I doubt that many diarists wanted to have their private thoughts published. The offense is very common.
On the other hand, I have read that Dmitri read some parts of the novel to conferences and was asking different Nabokov-experts what they think he should do. To me, all this drama seems more like a marketing ploy, arousing readers’ curiosity, than like a tortured conscience.
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