Dying Mag Pays Fortune For Dead Author’s Unfinished Book
Famed literary journal and titty mag Playboy acquired the exclusive serial rights to the unfinished final novella of author Vladimir Nabokov. They won the rights with flowers! And also lots of money. And also The New Yorker turned it down.
Playboy actually first excerpted Nabokov’s Ada or, Ardor back in 1969, when they were a very popular and highbrow titty mag. But the years have not been kind to Playboy, because the years invented the internet, and everyone forgot both how to read and how to masturbate to magazines.
And do you know who we don’t envy? Playboy’s literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd.
So. Vlad Nabokov, one of the most brilliant English-language authors ever, had not finished his last work, The Original of Laura, when he died. And he demanded that it never be published, because he was a bit of a perfectionist. Vlad’s son Dmitri complied with his dad’s wishes for many years, until he decided to just let it be published, because why not. So “super-agent” Andrew Wylie took over, and Amy Grave Loyd attempted to woo him with orchids, a reference to Ada.
Ms. Loyd was disappointed, figuring the honour of first serial was more likely to go to a place like The New Yorker, which had its own long history with Nabokov, and had in fact just last summer published one of his newly translated short stories. Ms. Loyd’s worry was not unfounded: Mr. Wylie had indeed sent Laura to the The New Yorker months earlier. But as it happened, according to a source at the magazine, the fiction department was not interested. (Fiction editor Deborah Treisman had no comment.)
On the first of June, Mr. Wylie changed his tune and wrote to Ms. Loyd asking her what, hypothetically, Playboy would be willing to pay for an exclusive.
They were willing to pay more than they have ever paid for a book excerpt before, and they were willing to pay this much without even reading a word of it. And it kinda turns out that the book might not be very good! “There are parts of it that are much more cohesive than others. But I found it fascinating in that way,” Loyd says.
But 5,000 words of The Original of Laura will run in the December American Playboy, presumably next to reviews of the latest in hi-fi gear, Canadian whiskey ads, Gahan Wilson cartoons, a lengthy Q&A with Mort Sahl, and nude pictures of Barbara Carrera. Pick it up at your local newsagent!
- Next Post: NYT Will Consider Story As Long As They Don’t Have To Pay Expenses »
- « Previous Post: Magazine Newsstands: Hos Before Brünos
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@QadiraYuppers: Slate chronicled the son's decision to do this here:
[www.slate.com]
Personally, I think it was necessary from an academic standpoint, to better understand his other writings. I understand it might not have been his best work, but it's a good way to learn about his writing process.
@skahammer: Indeed. I could happily read his writings on the drying of paint.
nirreskeya
Playboy in the 70s and 80s was really a quality magazine, at least the issues that I was able find in the garage at my uncle's house. There were great life style articles, politics and interviews. Not just articles about where to score a threesome on spring break. The models back then look like real, seductive women. Not summer bunnies from your local annex courses.
Paul.B.Dodd
@BookishLookish: My simply run-of-the-mill American vulgarity is getting more Philistine all the time, you know.
@BookishLookish: Ooh: I guess I had my Glo-dar on, because I thought that was her too. I'm sorry Michael Jackson and Farrah are dead and all, but when Glo dies--who sums of the 1970s much better for me than the aforementioned--I will probably have to take a mental-health day off from work. (Actually, no I won't: I'm getting laid off next week. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!)
Anyway, thanks, Pareene.
ginger rant
@skahammer: There is "nothing
more exhilarating than American Philistine vulgarity" is giving me heart palpitations.
@contains_hot_liquid: Holy God, was that awesome.
Now I need a cool damp towel and an hour alone in a dark room. The brilliance, it burns.
Nabokov's interview with Playboy from the early '60s is a great one.
[kulichki.com]
Alas that magazine disappeared and was replaced by another long long ago, probably sometime in the '80s.
But 5,000 words of The Original of Laura will run in the December Playboy... where literally dozens of people might read them.
markscottmusic
@TedSez: Leapin' lizards!
Wait, is Nabokov the guy who wrote Lolita, or "Little Annie Fannie"?
@kneetoe: Pnin = Peen?
@BookishLookish: *not*
Nice pic of Ms. Gloria Steinem, Pareene.
"All women are Bunnies." Hmm, no exactly, hon.
Well, there's the last highfalutin thing Playboy ever does. Do they really think that's gonna drive sales? I wish it could. I really do. Although I don't know what they pay for book excerpts. It IS something you'd check out if it was sitting on the table in front of you, no doubt. But then it's hard to think through the buying habits of the consumer public when you've never had any money. Like me.
urbororr
@kneetoe: Pale Firecrotch
@kneetoe: Win.
Speak, Mammaries
kneetoe
According to wikipedia, Nabokov often wrote his manuscripts on handwritten index cards, and "The Original of Laura" was written on 125 of them! I certainly don't envy Lloyd either. And as I much as I can't wait to read it, there's also another part of me that feels Dmitri should have just honored his father's wishes . . . You don't have to be a perfectionist to not want the whole world to see your incomplete index-card draft of a novel.
QadiraYuppers
And so faintly you came fapping, fapping at my chamber door ...
Masturbating to magazines increases the risk of paper cuts to your junk, something like ten-fold. It was always a poor business model.
Also: polish the Nob.