Nabokov's Compositional TOoL

“Efface, expunge, erase, delete, rub out, wipe out, obliterate”: Nabokov’s composition TOoL Vladimir Nabokov & CompositionNeMLA 2014Simon RowberrySimon.Rowberry@winchester.ac.uk@sprowberry

Nabokov’s use of Index Cards

“I find not that index cards really the best kind of paper that I can use for the purpose. I don't write consecutively from the beginning to the next chapter and so on to the end. I just fill in the gaps of the picture, of this jigsaw, puzzle which is quite clear in my mind, picking out a piece here and piece there”

(SO, 16-17)

“[Index cards] were my father’s version of the computer, there to be moved and rearranged.”(Dmitri Nabokov, interview with

Times [London])

“Texts that have been extended inside-out produce a different kind of essential indeterminacy. Instead of looking for the missing fact, the extra piece that will solve the puzzle, we may need to deal with facts that contradict each other”

(Sullivan, Art of Revision)

Marketing TOoL?

“it justifies the use of heavyweight paper and the decision to leave every other page blank, thus resulting in a 280-page hardcover and what the industry calls a higher ‘price point.’”

(Nathaniel Rich, “The Nabokov Mess”)

“Without a map of the unrealized novel we cannot inspect its grounds; not knowing the system of its inlet and outlet canals we cannot even admire, let alone navigate it”

(Barabtarlo, “Terminating the Phrase)

“Note, for example, the lack of perforation around the typed portions of the text. Do what we will with the cards, the official, authoritative interpretation of The Original of Laura stays intact.”

(Ardoin)

Blank back Double-sided

1

2 3

A Reading TOoL?

The Times (London)

The Access Problem

14 February 2011 21 new cards are found600 words of almost 1200 form a single draft scene

“Efface, expunge, erase, delete, rub out, wipe out, obliterate”: Nabokov’s composition TOoL Vladimir Nabokov & CompositionNeMLA 2014Simon RowberrySimon.Rowberry@winchester.ac.uk@sprowberry