So while I was hoping to post a writing exercise today, that will have to be curtailed for the moment. If I have to, I will pick up the Gardner book at the library today until I can replace -- or hopefully find -- my old copy.
I've been thinking a lot today about the recent news that a "lost" Nabokov novel is to be published. One would think at first that this would be tremendously exciting, but it is a bit bothersome that Nabokov left explicit instructions that the novel was to be destroyed upon his death, and now, lo these years later, his son has decided to publish it anyway. Isn't this the stuff that curses are made of?
The book -- or whatever is going to pass as a book -- will probably be terrible. Sure, it may give us some insights into Nabokov's process, but does anyone really think that this is what he was hoping to impart when he started it? He wanted to tell a tale, not show us how he scratched out sections and rewrote sentences. I worry the same for any of the posthumous releases from David Foster Wallace, who infamously sweat bullets over every word, getting it just the way he wanted before he released it to the world. (That's hard to believe when you check in for a hernia operation after lifting Infinite Jest, but this is what "they" all say about his process.)
I, however, have no pretension to perfection. I'll show off my crappy prose, warts and all, at the drop of a hat. Perhaps this is why I'll never achieve that genius of Nabokov and Wallace. Or do I mean the mystery of those writers? The coolness? The X factor?
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