50 Years of Lolita

[swag]

A good, short piece by Vera Nabokov's biographer Stacy Schiff about a book that is pure joy to read and re-read (please: never mind those awful movies).

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/opinion/15schiff.html?pagewanted=print

IN "circular skirt and scanties," Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" flounced into print 50 years ago today. But before she tripped off the tongue and into the literary canon, before she lent her name to inflatable dolls and escort agencies, Lolita was a much-rejected manuscript, huddling in a locked drawer. Her author spoke of her only in secret, on the condition that his identity never be revealed. He kept her out of the hands of the United States Postal Service. She was his "time bomb." The wonder is that - in a confessional culture, in taboo-toppling, hail-Britney times - she still startles and sears.

Humbert Humbert claims to have written the text in 56 days, but Nabokov was less of a madman, and a Cornell professor to boot. He labored over the pages for six years. Only in the summer of 1953 did he first mention his novel "about a man who liked little girls" to an editor. Nabokov was a fairly recent immigrant, but he knew well that no one in America was beating down the door to read the sexually explicit confessions of a European gentleman who several times a day, over the course of two years, rapes his prepubescent stepdaughter.

Nabokov's wife, Véra, had already warned that the novel was not one for children. The first editor to read "Lolita" did not think it even a book for adults, at least not for adults unwilling to serve jail sentences. In 1955, Paris was a city rather than a celebrity; stars of X-rated films did not write how-to books; and "obscene" was a designation for art rather than a denomination of money. Behind Nabokov's back, friends agreed that no one would touch the thing. They were right. "I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years," cringed one editor.

At Doubleday, young Jason Epstein was quick to grasp that the novel was infinitely more than the sum of its plot, that Nabokov had "in effect, written 'Swann's Way' as if he had been James Joyce." The book read like a thriller. Its pacing was quick. It was vastly amusing. And Mr. Epstein could vote against "Lolita" only "on the grounds of its outlandish perverseness."

. . . more

[Robeson]

1. Thanks for providing the article. Very nice....

...but don't be too harsh on the Stanley Kubrick's version. It wasn't schlock. And he had to make it in a time in which, you have to realize, there had to be obvious restraints, or it couldn't have been made. That movie reflects all that is best in Kubrick, i.e. atmosphere. Through that, he was able to convey a lot of the novel.

Besides, I take it personal if you diss that movie, because I do a perfect impersonation of James Mason pleading with Lolita. At least, that's what my wife says...;-)

[swag]

2. Wow, that's a swell impersonation to have in your repertoire.

I can abide the Kubrick Lolita as a work of filmic art entirely seperate from the novel, (and I understand the constraints of making films in the early 1960s). But the film was Kubrick's work and certainly not Nabokov's.

Starting with the obvious fact that the 16 year-old Sue Lyon was no Lolita, this lover of the novel finds many things wanting in what is probably a beautiful, clever, and funny film, mainly that the film is not Lolita.

[Robeson]

3. Yes, that's what I'm saying. The movie can be judged on its own...

...merits. As a separate work of art, it is art. Is it true to the novel? No. But few movies are. "Being There" is an exception. I've read that novel, and seen the movie, and the movie pretty much captures the novel.

But I agree, the original Lolita movie, is a derivative of the novel.

[REP]

4. Very Few Seem To Get Nabakov's Device in Lolita

Humbert Humbert is a dishonest narrator; the truth is glanced through the corners (Lolita is not a seductress; in fact, she is drugged by him at one point). Of all his works, I find it the creepiest. I've read it several times, and I can't say I "like" it, though I do admire it. I prefer Bend Sinister and Pale Fire.

[swag]

5. Funny. I thought that aspect was evident.

Pale Fire is certainly an amazing puzzle box of a book.