I love the idea that there are hidden literary treasures that are just waiting to be discovered. The Original of Laura was just published--unfinished and culled from Nabokov's hand-written notecards. But, would the author be rolling over in his grave?

AP, Globe & Mail, NPR, New York Books, The Guardian, Slate, and LA Times--all offer us the pieces of another great Nabokov puzzle. Why was his final, unfinished novel published (against his wishes--with questionable results)?

Of course, Nabokov is world famous (and controversial)--works like Lolita are acclaimed as world masterworks. So, we want to know everything about the man and his genius of words. We yearn for more. When they tell us we've reach the end (the final word), what can we do? We (as hungry readers) dare to ask for more. We sometimes even manage to reach (as it were) beyond the grave. We grasp at those tidbits of knowledge and understanding that were never intended for us to see. We never think to ask if there wasn't a VERY good reason for not releasing the manuscript in the first place. What about the author's wishes?

I should say: I haven't read the novel, so I can't address the quality of the fiction, nor the power of Nabokov's eloquence in this unfinished form. I'm sure (as many of the reviewers have already noted), there will be moments of brilliance in Nabokov's last unfinished manuscript. As Brian Boyd says, "Vladimir Nabokov's incomplete novel reminds us of the power of his story-telling."

Others have not been so kind in their assessments. Aleksandar Hemon (Slate) says: "At a mere 9,000 or so words, The Original of Laura is at best a short-story sketch, at worst a collection of 138 notecards (which Nabokov preferred to use to compose, leaving it to his wife, Vera, to type the manuscript), slapped together in just enough of a semblance of order to afford the reader a peek at a possible structure and a hint of the underlying ideas." He leaves little guess why he feels so strongly that the work should never have seen the publisher's light of day.

The reality of it is... We can talk about what could or should have been done with the manuscript, but I find myself strangely fascinated by this: yet another piece of the literary puzzle that's been left. After all, if Nabokov had wanted his work to be destroyed, why didn't he burn it? And, I can't help but think of that other famous quote from Nabokov: "The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."

The page is not so blank anymore...

For Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert will never be forgotten. Madame Bovary catapulted him to fame and controversy--that famously tragic heroine will forever hold a place in our imaginations.

Of course, Flaubert wrote many more novels and short stories beyond his most famous, banned book. His best-received book was Three Tales, a collection consisting of: "A Simple Heart," "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller," and "Herodias." Finely compressed into the lines of these work, we discover beauty and profound pleasure in Flaubert's lines. Here's just a taste:

"There was deep silence; and the censers slipping on their chains were swung high in the air. A blue vapour rose in Felicite's room. She opened her nostrils and inhaled with a mystic sensuousness; then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a fountain giving out, like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her last breath, she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic parrot hovering above her head."

Here, we get the sense of Flaubert's life slipping away as well. His good friend, George Sand, died while he was writing "A Simple Heart." And, this book was to be his last. Other writers have already spoken of the beauty of a final word. At the very least, works like this offers us insight into the body of his literary work, and reminds us how well justified his place in world literature is...

It's Thanksgiving! The day has crept up on me, but I have no difficulty with list of what I'm thankful for this year...

Here are a few bits to read on this day:

• Jane Murray's Thanksgiving
• A Thanksgiving To God, For His House
• The Morning of the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving
• An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving
• A Thanksgiving Poem

Read more quotes of Thanksgiving:

• "Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night."
  -- Irving Berlin
• "O Lord that lends me life,
  Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."
  -- William Shakespeare
• "Once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes I came to the chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience."
  -- Sadi, The Gulistan
• "The pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts ... nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving."
  -- H.W. Westermayer
• "Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving."
  -- W.T. Purkiser
• "I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness... Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy."
  -- Anne Frank

Is it possible to enjoy grammar? Why does it really have to be so difficult anyway?

Grammar is the study of words and how they combine to form sentences, but the basics of grammar can be fun. After all, what could be more fun than seeing how the greatest writers play with language? A.A. Milne once wrote: "My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places." I like the concept of "wobbly" letters--as if they have a mind of their own. Somehow we must master them--wrestle them back to their proper place. We may ourselves perfectly understand what we want to say, but the misplaced letters and misused words can leave us all in confusion. Communication is difficult, if not impossible.

As we study the classics, we recognize the unique ways in which writers are able to shape language with their spectacular styles. Words are to be enjoyed--rethought, finessed, played with! In those beautiful combinations of lines, form and substance--we're drawn in, with a power that's subtle and powerful. Beautiful!

Take a look at other resources in grammar.