Nov
13th
Fri
13th
All the expansive elaborations on old age in Laura—involving flatulence, constipation, diarrhea, foot odor, and prostate tumors—strike a downright grim, masochistic note. Nabokov, who once described his life as “fresh bread with country butter and Alpine honey,” with Laura brings to mind Tolstoy’s comparison of life to a tartine de merde, which one is obliged to eat slowly.
— Michael Maar shorts the new Nabokov novel. “Tartine de merde” is French for shit sandwich.
