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»

Jennifer Egan's 'Black Box' serialized on Twitter

(NEWSER) - The latest story from a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer will appear in 140-character chunks. The New Yorker is publishing Jennifer Egan's "Black Box" in installments on Twitter, the New York Observer reports. The tweets, which began yesterday , will appear from 8pm to 9pm every day for nine days. They'll also be collected each day at the magazine's Page-Turner blog . The whole story will appear in Monday's science fiction issue of the New Yorker. More»

Novelist refutes magazine, says it was a bad reaction to sleeping pill

(NEWSER) - Philip Roth isn't happy with the Atlantic: A recent piece in the magazine said he suffered from "a 'crack-up' in his mid-50s," and the novelist says that's simply "not true." The Atlantic Wire points out that the episode, "whatever you call it," has been widely discussed in past articles and interviews, but the novelist rejects the term "crack-up." The truth, says Roth, is that he suffered an "adverse reaction" to a sleeping pill called Halcion in the 1980s. More»