Vladimir Nabokov, The Original of Laura (Dying Is Fun)

Barbara Wyllie (University College London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1977

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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On finishing his seventeenth novel,

Look at the Harlequins!

, in April 1974, Vladimir Nabokov signed a new contract with McGraw-Hill for six books over four years, one of which was to be his next novel,

The Original of Laura: Dying is Fun

. He was seventy-five. By May

Laura

was already “mapped out rather clearly for next year”. It was to be “Inspiration. Radiant insomnia. The flavour of snow of beloved alpine slopes. A novel

without

an I, without a he, but with the narrator,

the gliding eye

, being implied throughout” (Boyd 643-44). Work on it had to be postponed, however, until he had completed final revisions to his French

Ada

, as well as a set of translations of his Russian stories, and it was not until December 1975, after an operation on a benign prostate tumour, that he was…

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3652 words

Citation: Wyllie, Barbara. "The Original of Laura (Dying Is Fun)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 January 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28518, accessed 11 May 2024.]

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