Nabokov's Last Work: Burn It?

Son's imagined convo with dead dad might've saved final manuscript

(NEWSER) - Dmitri Nabokov's decision not to destroy his famed father's unfinished manuscript followed an imagined conversation with Vladimir's ghost, writes Ron Rosenbaum for Slate. Rosenbaum, who sleuthed his way through the "to burn or not to burn" debate, was previously told by Dmitri—who hinted at the book's genius before announcing his intent to destroy it—that he would keep his decision secret. More»

Thomas Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow'? Not likely

(NEWSER) - The Great Gatsby is about to get the celluloid treatment again . And while we can only hope that Baz Luhrmann does it justice, a great book does not automatically equal a great film. (The Scarlett Letter much?) The Huffington Post lists 15 novels that it considers "unfilmable":

1. Pale Fire, by Vladamir Nabokov: Truly a riddle, this footnote-ridden book revolves around a 999-line poem.
2. The Waves, by Virginia Woolf: It's basically six monologues, making the book one big monologue.

(NEWSER) - The literary event of the year will be sandwiched between nudes in the pages of Playboy this fall, the Independent reports. The magazine won the rights to publish Vladimir Nabokov's final novella—which he ordered to be destroyed after his death—after its literary editor went to great lengths to win over the writers' son's agent, even sending him several shipments of flowers. More»

Received intelligence about plot at Jaipur literary event

(NEWSER) - Salman Rushdie has dropped out of India's top literary festival after hearing that assassins may have been planning to attend—and kill him. Powerful clerics had protested the author's attendance at the Jaipur festival, which opened today and was to feature Rushdie as a speaker. But "intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan" informed him "that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to 'eliminate' me," he said in a statement, according to the BBC . More»

After two no-show years, this could be their final vigil

(NEWSER) - Beginning on Jan. 19, 1949, a mysterious visitor marked Edgar Allan Poe's birthday by laying three red roses and a bottle of cognac on the author's Baltimore grave. But fans of the gothic scribe worry that the tradition may be resting six feet under as well: The birthday visitor last struck in 2009, on the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth. Both 2010 and 2011 passed with no sign of the "Poe toaster," who typically arrived between midnight and dawn (though imposters did attend last year, including a man who arrived in a limo). The Poe House and Museum's curator says he'll wait one final time tonight before declaring the tradition dead, reports the AP . More»