The Original of Laura: Journeying inside Nabokov's Mind

The Original of Laura belongs on the coffee table more than it belongs on the bookshelf. Vladimir Nabokov's posthumously published "novel" reproduces the 138 index cards of a novel he was working on at the time of his death. The pages of this Knopf production consist of card stock, with perforations surrounding each index card to boot. Typeset text of Nabokov’s words accompanies each index card, like the descriptions of paintings accompanying a coffee table collection of Van Goghs. This package feels nice and heavy in your hand. Flipping the pages reveals interesting tidbits about Nabokov’s thought process. He numbered his index cards in an elaborate system, identifying first the chapter, and then the number within that chapter. He also misspelled many things, whether because he couldn’t be bothered to spell things correctly or because he was unsure of the correct spellings.

Flipping through the pages, however, does not provide a comfortable reading experience. The reader is solving a mystery, both trying to piece together a narrative that makes sense from Nabokov’s index cards, while trying to figure out whether or not he intended the readers to read it that way. As far as I can tell, the story is about a woman named Flora, who has a book written about her by a former lover called “My Laura.” The real Flora is married to an older professor, Philip Wild, who tries to figuratively make his body disappear, and thus, to die. Nabokov’s index cards tell both the story of Flora and the story of Laura, occasionally confusing the reader about which is which.

Moments of gorgeous prose about the female body or about what it feels like to cut off to remove one’s toes are pleasurable, but are not enough to go by to judge the quality of Nabokov’s novel.

The unfinished-ness of The Original of Laura raises the whole question of whether or not incomplete manuscripts should even be published. As Sam Anderson points out in New York Magazine, Nabokov was a perfectionist—he even wanted the original Lolita to be burned—who would not have been pleased by the prospect of strangers reading his scribbles. At the same time, The Original of Laura probably contributes to Nabokov’s reputation as a brilliant thinker who could piece together intricate plots by shuffling index cards. This fan, at least, is grateful for the opportunity to experience a Nabokov work in progress.

Journey through American Art at the Met

Today I went to the Met for the first time in a year. My boyfriend, his parents and I braved the holiday crowds to see two exhibits, which taken together, provide examples of social commentary through art throughout American history. In addition, they provide a good example of how social commentary has also changed form through the years.

"American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915," is a heavily curated show that traces American figure painting for two centuries. The exhibit features all the American greats from Copley to Homer to Sargent. Since so many of the featured pictures are already iconic (Morisot's Little Girl in a Blue Dress, Homer's Snap the Whip), it's helpful for the curation to cast a new light on these paintings by accompanying each picture with ample texual description. I probably spent more time reading than I did looking at the images in this exhibit. The text maps American painting closely to American history. Paintings from the early 19th Century, for example, commented on the idea of rural versus urban America. One painting shows a woman choosing between a country suitor and a city suitor; another visualizes the campaign slogan "Tippacanoe and Tyler Too," favoring the western Harrison to the refined van Buren. The late 19th Century, on the other hand, featured Americans experiencing the glamours of Europe at a time when Americans were becoming more worldly. Each room of the exhibit highlights a particular era. Going through all the rooms in order evoked the sense of walking through an American History textbook, minus any of the awful memorization.

"Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans" is an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of Robert Frank's photography book, The Americans. In the 1950s, the Swiss Frank drove across the US taking over 700 rolls of film along the way. He condensed his pictures to an 83 image book called "The Americans." While it was viewed as subversive --even anti-American--at the time, it's been rehabilitated since. This exhibit displays all 83 photos in order, along with some explanation about the themes that Frank was trying to illuminate. Some of the most memorable photos include a black nurse holding a white baby, and a diner bar full of working men on a lunch break looking skeptically at the camera. At first glance, the value of these pictures seem to lie in their ability to capture a bygone time. After all, the picture are all black and white and features such mechanisms as drive throughs and jukeboxes. Frank's social commentary is the second most noticeable thing. He grouped his pictures carefully to comment on America's racial segregation, consumerism, and hard-working spirit. One series of pictures uses the titles "Parade" and "Founding Fathers" ironically. They depict several forlorn people looking out of a window with a flag on the building and a group of men looking on at the betting track in derbies -- not exactly a typical parade or typical founding fathers. Indeed, Frank's is social commentary by arrangement. His grouping abilities sometimes surpass his photographic abilities.

What's most interesting about looking at Frank's pictures fifty years after he took them is to think how similar America is. If someone went around the country and tried to capture the same themes and images, they would be able to do it, nearly frame for frame. There is still plenty of despair, patriotism, and hope.

Three Terrific Short Story Collections

Short stories are what I turn to when trying to figure out how fiction works. Though short stories are often less rewarding than novels, they are often punchier and more revelatory when handled by the best writers. I've recently been on a short story binge, reading the selected stories of Raymond Carver, Alice Munro's latest collection, Too Much Happiness, and Maile Meloy's latest collection Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. Short stories are seen by most fiction readers as novels in training wheels. Yet, the difficulty of selecting exactly the right words and sentences is felt more acutely in short stories than longer novels. It's thus helpful to read collections by the best authors to see exactly what they choose to reveal, and to what effect.
Reading these three authors in such a short time period illuminates the effects of different stylistic choices. Raymond Carver's stories typically describe a short time period and may not even have a beginning middle and end. His entire story may span the course of an afternoon or a day. One of his more well known stories, "What we talk about when we talk about love," centers around a conversation four people have during dinner. Over the course of dinner, they reveal their romantic histories, as well as their current attitudes towards love. The action takes place over conversation and sideways glances. In the end, we get a picture of four people's outlook on love at one very specific point in their lives. Carver doesn't choose to tell us much about his characters' histories or their futures; his scenes are merely snapshots of his characters' lives. Readers can make up the rest.

In contrast, Alice Munro's stories are almost like short novels. Her recent collection, Too Much Happiness, features many protagonists reflecting on their lives. Munro uses this perspective to tell an entire life's story in twenty pages. By doing this, she essentially distills a life to one aspect of it. This is necessary to fit everything in twenty pages, but also gives the reader a skewed sense of what is significant in a character's life. For example, the story "Fictions" begins as the story of a marriage between a woman, Joyce, and her husband. Her husband leaves her for a lumberjack-type woman. In the second half of the story, Joyce is a 65 year old married to her second husband. At a party, she meets a woman who is the daughter of the woman that Joyce's first husband left her for. The daughter is now a successful short story writer. Joyce picks up her book at the bookstore, and -- of course-- one of the short stories is about her. The story then unfolds as a series of Joyce's predictions about the short story and the author's subsequent ability to exceed these expectations. We see everything from Joyce's perspective, but through the short story, we see everything as a film reversal.

Finally, Maile Meloy's Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It tells beautifully constructed, yet more conventional stories than either Munro or Carver. In precise, twenty page stretches, Meloy shapes a beginning, middle and end. Most of her stories are set in the Northern Midwest/Plains states and evoke a sense of isolation. They range in theme from stories of growing up to stories of settling into marriage. Meloy's voice, however, reveals something new about each of these themes. Her story "Spy vs. Spy," for example, at first appears to be a typical story of sibling rivalry. Aaron and his younger brother, George, gather for a ski trip with Aaron's family and George's girlfriend. Over the course of the trip, we learn that Aaron is the responsible one who resents his brother's free-wheeling life. Of course, Aaron challenges George to a black diamond slope, falls, and gets in a fight with George. But Meloy peppers Aaron's thoughts with childhood memories that add dimension to the characters.

"If they'd had it out when they were younger, really whaled on eac other, then maybe it would be out of their systems...But George had always been younger, and Aaron too restrained to take advantage of his greater strength."

This come at exactly the moment when we're wondering why they hadn't fought before.

In all, these three collections made terrific holiday season reading, and will be remembered all year round.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Boring Movie

Two visually enjoyable films in this December's otherwise lacking line up are Avatar (December 18) and Sherlock Holmes (December 25). The bf and I trekked through the snowscape that was DC yesterday to a matinee showing of Avatar. It's basically everything the reviews say. Visually exciting, technically game-changing, but with an overtly anti-colonialist message and completely predictable plot. I really have little new to say about this beyond what Manohla Dargis and Dave Denby have already stated better. Avatar is ultimately memorable, though, the way that the first time you saw Star Wars or Jurassic Park was also memorable, simply for the thrill of seeing something so cool for the first time.

Sherlock Holmes is a different matter. What seemed to be a ribald historical/literary adaptation turned into James Bond of the 19th century. In other words, a thriller with a lot of improbable fighting sequences and technology. The only difference is that instead of pen-sized lock pickers, Sherlock Holmes features odorless fuels and invisible numbing agents. Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) also fights with his mind rather than his brawny Daniel Craig-like muscles. It’s pretty cool to see Holmes plan out his punches in his mind before he socks it to his opponents.

Sherlock Holmes also exemplifies the movie industry’s increasing reliance on CGI. Remember back in the day when historical films meant cool costumes (Pride and Prejudice, Marie Antoinette, Braveheart)? Now, historical films – especially those aimed at men – increasingly mean cool special effects (Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, 300). CGI is used well in Sherlock Holmes. The streets of London give off the right amount of gritty dampness. A half-built suspension bridge looms in several foreshadowing scenes before it’s featured in the final sequence.

Unfortunately, the special effects are the best parts of the movie. The story plot is a poor imitation of Dan Brown. Essentially, Lord Blackmore and his “secret society” (think, Freemasons), plot to take over England, the United States, and then the world. Holmes must stop him with his powerful deduction skills. Of course, we know that Holmes will be victorious, but we aren’t given the clues to follow along like we are in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories. Instead, there’s a reversal every five minutes to show explain otherwise inexplicable events. These get tiresome.

Holmes’ central problem is also supposed to be his lack of emotion. His practicality and logic get in the way of his feeling. So he can’t admit that he’s sad that Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is leaving him to get married, or that he has feelings for Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). While Downey does a good job coming across as an eccentric genius, the script is too thin for him to explore any other feelings, leaving the movie as more of a CGI enhanced action flick than historical drama.

Wolf Hall: A New Approach to Historical Fiction

The conundrum that all historical fiction authors face is how to make a story exciting when the readers know what happens to the major characteristics historically. At first glance, Hilary Mantel's 530 page novel set in the court of Henry VIII as the king attempts to make an heir, faces an especially daunting task of creating something original. Readers interested in this story know about Henry VIII's successful quest to become head of the Church of England, annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. We also know that Thomas More is killed for being a heretic. Most importantly, we know that Thomas Cromwell somehow made all this happen as the King's right-hand man.

But Mantel draws on what we don't know to capture our attention. Namely, we don't know how the politics of the time allowed the son of a blacksmith to rise to become a king's secretary. Mantel sheds light on this subject by using a wholly original voice. She tells everything from Cromwell's perspective, but through selective third-person narration rather than first. While this strategy takes several pages to get used to, it contributes to a unique experience unlike any that I've encountered before in historical fiction. Instead of telling us what Cromwell feels in third person, instead of Cromwell narrating "I thought" such and such, Mantel uses Cromwell like a camera lens, exposing us only to what he can see at the moment. For example, early in the book, when the young Cromwell finds a refuge on a ship after escaping his abusive father, we get this line:

"He is surprised. Are there people in the world who are not cruel to their children? For the first time, the weight in his chest shifts a little; he thinks, there could be other places, better."

And so, the story seems to be narrated with one delightful observation to another. On writing bills for Henry VIII: "His bills are passed but there is always another bill. When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power." On asking a woman if she still has sex with her husband: "That's a conversation I shouldn't have had." On the sentencing of Thomas More and other heretics: "The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms...This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase."

Luckily for us, Cromwell is a pretty astute camera lens. He always happens to be in the midst of the politicking and deal making, bringing us behind the scenes of Sixteenth Century kingdom management. If Mantel means to make any sweeping pronouncements, it's that humanity remains excruciatingly unchanged despite four hundred years of progress. On the one hand, man is ruled by reason and science over faith; petulant kings no longer order stake-burnings at their whim. On the other hand, people still scheme, still seek justifications from some higher being for all their actions. Above all, the powerful still need Cromwells to do their dirty work, while we continue to wonder which is more guilty.

Best of the Best of the Decade Lists

Now that I'm done with LSAT's, I'm trying to revel in non-law school bliss before I need to actually start applying.

In the meantime, the end of the year is always a robust list-making season. Lists of presents to ask for, lists of people to buy for, and lists of resolutions to aim for. Most fun are lists of the year's best media products. What makes this year ten times better is that it also marks the end of the Gregorian decade. I'm tempted to make a personal list of this decade's best, but considering I spent the bulk of the decade being an emo teenager, I am probably not a good source. Instead, I've taken the opportunity to discover all the things I missed while in my emo trance most of this past decade by looking at some publications' best of the decade lists. The top three (one each for books, films, and music) best best of the decade lists are as follows:

Books
The Times Online 100 Best Books of the Decade is a pretty uncontroversial list that's large enough to leave no one slighted. Personal favorites like Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud both made it. The list spans both non-fiction and fiction and recognizes influence over quality. The DaVinci Code, for instance, appears at number 10 with this explanation "A murder in the Louvre, and the clues are all hidden in the works of Leonardo. Some love it, some hate it (see our worst of the decade article), but you can’t deny that its mix of conspiracy, riddles and action dominated the decade." The most refreshing aspect of this list is its attention to British writers. Two items that got much less press on this side of the Atlantic that this list includes are Lorna Sage's Bad Blood and a collection of poetry, Rapture, by Carol Ann Duffy.

Films
My boyfriend introduced me to The Onion's AV Club several months ago, but it really established credibility in my mind with its month long "Best of the Decade" feature. The AV Club gives kudos in unconventional categories such as best comics, best comedy albums, and best tv episodes. The most helpful list by far is the Best films of the '00s. The list's trustworthiness is revealed in its strong picks included in the top 5: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, There will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Memento. The top 5 also includes something I hadn't seen: 25th Hour, which I now trust to add to my Netflix queue. The other 45 picks include many Asian films that I wasn't aware of. Also, don't take my word for it: David Plotz gives the list a shoutout on Slate's Political Gabfest.

Music
Music lists are of a different character than books or films. Music is more of a continuous experience; once you put something on your iPod or download it, it becomes part of your collection. Whereas you can always borrow a book or rent a movie and quickly return it. Music, on the other hand, reflects one's personal tastes more. That's why I find best music lists to be so gratuitous. They can only advise others who have the same taste as you or say what the influential things have been. NPR has taken the latter path with a wholly unsurprising list on All Things Considered. (Kelly Clarkson, Kanye, J-Z inevitably make that list). But I prefer lists that cater to my taste. Paste Magazine has a terrific one that seems targeted towards the aging hipster (40-65) demographic (i.e. perfect for me). It's very strong on mellow productions like Damien Rice's O, the Once Soundtrack, and Jens Lekman. It's also heavy on alt-country and introduced me to Drive By Truckers and inspired me to re-discover Ryan Adams. The story-telling focus on both these acts would have once bored a younger me, but make an older me really happy.