The Asian philosophical concepts in Vladimir Nabokov's The Original of Laura.

This article presents a cross‐textual analysis of the refracted presence of Asian philosophical concepts in Vladimir Nabokov's posthumous novel, The Original of Laura (2009). It argues that the novel subtly parodies Yukio Mishima's dramatic suicide and his aesthetic ideal juxtaposing death with beauty. Nabokov blends his characteristic playfulness and sarcasm into the ritual suicides of Philip Wild and Adam Lind, suggesting that suicide is an absurd method of seeking fulfillment while simultaneously deconstructing the grim implications of mortality. Symbolically, the "Chinese butterflies" on the fans—exchanged between Flora and Wild through buying and selling—reference the Taoist "butterfly dream," highlighting the illusory nature of the characters' existence. This metaphor links the lives and deaths of the mirror characters in The Original of Laura and My Laura, thus creating a complex echo between the inner and outer texts. Additionally, Buddhist elements are integrated into the story, as seen in Wild's extraction of dictionary entries on Nirvana. Ironically, his experiments with self‐obliteration reveal a shallow understanding of the "extinction of the self," which, essentially, requires an internal detachment from the self, thereby adding layers of mockery to his misguided path to transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]