Archives for July 9, 2009

Several interesting features to this story about Playboy‘s acquiring rights to run an excerpt from Nabokov’s The Original of Laura. That the New Yorker passed on the rights (!). The degree to which Playboy pitched some serious woo to gain them, including the dispatch of fresh orchids to the Wylie Agency offices. And that Playboy was asked to make an offer without having seen the manuscript — and did. The magazine’s literary editor Amy Grace Loyd is quoted as saying, “I knew because of Nabokov’s genius, even if the manuscript was even more messy than it actually is, I would probably still be content.”
For those of you who haven’t been following this saga: The Original of Laura is the manuscript Nabokov left unfinished at his death, in 1977. He requested that it be destroyed. It wasn’t. And now after some public hand-wringing and a lapse of a little more than three decades, the work will be published by Knopf on Nov. 17 — with suitably somber cover art by Chip Kidd. The 5,000-word excerpt runs in Playboy‘s December issue (out Nov. 10), accompanied by what one imagines will be less somber cover art.
So how good can we expect The Original of Laura to be? Wikipedia’s thorough entry on the novel shows only a small circle of people have read it (or had excerpts read to them), and bits and pieces of the manuscript have appeared in a couple magazines. But the most promising mention I’ve yet come across is contained in a letter written by Dmitri Nabokov to the National Review in 1987. The letter, a point-by-point rebuttal of claims made by critic-biographer Andrew Field in his V.N.: The Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov, ends with a denial of Field’s characterization of the end of Nabokov’s life as marked by “heavy drinking” and “decline”. Dmitri writes:

[T]he decline Field invents presumably encompasses such petits riens as Ada, Transparent Things, Look at the Harlequins, and The Original of Laura, which was interrupted by Nabokov’s death and promised to be one of his most brilliant and original works (for the time being, my word will have to be taken for that).”

Intriguing, right?

Yes, I’m mostly thinking about the premiere of The Letter on July 25, but I haven’t lost sight of the publication of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong on December 2. The good news is that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is planning to send me on a multi-city book tour, and several dates have already been confirmed.
Here are the places where I’ll definitely be speaking:
• The Boston Athenaeum on December 3.
• The Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble on December 7.
• The Los Angeles Public Library on December 8.
• Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library on December 9.
• The Philadelphia Free Library on December 10.
In addition, there’s a good chance that I’ll be speaking in Washington, D.C., on January 6–no details yet, though.
Needless to say, watch this space for further information and additional tour dates in other cities.
As for The Letter, the Santa Fe Opera has now posted an online schedule of events related to the upcoming premiere, including various public appearances that Paul Moravec and I will be making. If you’re coming to Santa Fe to see the show, go here to find out what else you can do.

A reminder: if you want regular updates on rehearsals for the world premiere of The Letter, all you have to do is start following me on Twitter.
To see my last five tweets, look at the “Terry’s Twitters” module in the right-hand column.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q * (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, closes Sept. 13, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid * (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, closes Aug. 30, reviewed here)

• Mary Stuart (drama, G, far too long and complicated for children, closes Aug. 16, reviewed here)

• South Pacific * (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, sexual content and suggestions of extreme violence, closes Sept. 6, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The History Boys (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, too intellectually complex for most adolescents, extended through Sept. 27, reviewed here)

• A Minister’s Wife (musical, PG-13, closes Aug. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• The Norman Conquests (three related comedies, PG-13, comprehensively unsuitable for children, playing in repertory and extended through July 26, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• God of Carnage * (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes July 19, then reopens Sept. 8 and runs through Nov. 15, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Rivalry (historical drama, G, too complicated for children, closes July 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LA JOLLA:

• Restoration (serious comedy, PG-13, closes July 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Waiting for Godot * (drama, PG-13, accessible to intelligent and open-minded adolescents, closes July 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN LOS ANGELES:

• Oleanna (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet–whom Plato banned from his Republic–may rise up to save us all.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel lecture, Dec. 8, 1978