The thought of forever losing a Nabokov work brings me to tears. If we can prevent a fire like the one that destroyed the Library at Alexandria, then shouldn't we do just that? In Tom Stoppard's Arcadia Septimus assures Thomasina that, "the missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece or will be written in another language" but can we trust that? Do we really believe it? While I think that honoring Nabokov's wishes is important, I think this is something that is bigger than him. Humankind will be missing out on a great literary contribution that, even unfinished, is sure to propel forward our cultural cause - especially something that is from such a groundbreaking writer.

I love VN. I love his words, I love his ideas. Although I never met him, I trust him. How can we value all that he has given us, and then disregard his final wish for this manuscript? This strikes me as highbrow paparazzi-ism. I fully believe that this manuscript should be destroyed, if for no other reason than that VN thought it should. Maybe our cultural cause would be manipulated by this piece - maybe he knew that it would be fundamentally misunderstood. Maybe this story is meant to be told by someone else, and by destroying this version we free a younger writer to reach out to us.