Pages tagged “vladimir nabokov”

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I Write Like Compares Big Boi, Sleigh Bells to Stephen King, Dan Brown

Sure, we writerly types would all like to think we’re the next Nabokov or Hemingway. Luckily, I Write Like is here to fulfill all our unreasonable delusions! The website invites you to put in your finest literary work and, through a presumably-algorithmic analysis tool, tells you what great writer your work resembles. Of course, the Tumblr community promptly went and destroyed our precious egos by informing us that, according to I Write Like, Mel Gibson’s rants had airs of Chuck Palahniuk, LFO’s “Summer Girls” echoed Vonnegut and Justin Bieber’s “Baby” was in the tradition of James Joyce. With that in...  read more

The Master's Sputum: Unfinished Nabokov Novel Now Open to Examination

In 1962, prodded by an interviewer to share a glimpse of a first draft, novelist Vladimir Nabokov replied, “Only ambitious non-entities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It is like passing around samples of one’s sputum.” Now, more than 30 years after his death, we have an opportunity—against Nabokov’s expressed wishes—to examine such a sample....  read more

Playboy Acquires Rights to Serialize Vladimir Nabokov's Final Work

Every now and then, Playboy publishes something that really does compel people to pick up the magazine for the articles. The latest addition to this list is The Original of Laura, the novella Vladimir Nabokov was scribbling onto index cards until his death in 1977. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner acquired the first serial rights after his publication's literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd, plotted a clever scheme to win over Andrew Wylie, the book's agent: send him orchids. ...  read more