As a Russian scholar in the making, as well as someone who's read almost word available to the public written by Vladimir Nabokov, I deeply understand the world's desire to see the "Laura" cards. Sometimes, I think I would go to great lengths to see them myself.

However, I ultimately view it as lamentable that neither Vera nor Dmitri destroyed "Laura" soon after VN's death. Many writers' lives end as cliffhangers, and we, the reading public, have to accept that, as well as accepting the corpus writers managed to produce in full during their lifetimes. Nabokov did not want us to read "The Original of Laura," and I don't think we ever should.

Kafka famously asked Max Brod to destroy all of his work just before he died. Thankfully he didn't.

Now, this may be a slightly different situation, but I would still maintain that any such requests are inherently dishonest. Kafka didn't really want his work destroyed, or he would have done it himself. I agree with another reader who posted in a different topic: this is a deliberate dilemma designed not to have a solution. The tantalising little titbits supplied by Dmitri serve only to heighten the surrounding drama.

It would be tremendously unsatisfying if he actually did end up destroying the thing, and I don't think anyone would be well served through such an action.