Nabokov's "Laura" ...

... Gratuitous excogitations. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I am not for burning anything a major writer leaves behind unfinished, but it strikes me that the little that is left here belongs more properly in an archive or limited university-press edition than in Knopf’s greatly heralded, largely holographic, deluxe publication. These cards are merely an interesting mess. Whereas as a novel they are as unfinished as can be, they do leave my esteem for Nabokov the man, as different but not entirely distinct from the writer, pretty much finished.