castle of illusion

Should this book have been published? Certainly all the work of a great writer like Vladimir Nabokov ought to be available to scholars and interested readers. To my mind, Dmitri Nabokov was clearly right to ignore his dying father’s request that he destroy these fragments of an unfinished novel. But that doesn’t mean “The Original of Laura” actually deserves the attention of anyone but the most rabid Nabokov fanatic. Apart from a few enchanting phrases — “the orange awnings of southern summers” — there’s just not much here.