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Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

Sorry to hear the sad news and yay SIL for putting that new avatar up.
Shelley winters was Big Haze for me also, a force bigger than all life in that film. Someone once remarked that James Mason seemed subdued in the film. Alongside her Big haze it is amazing that he showed up at all. She exuded energy, she had personality, and she had attitude. And she could wilt and pout so nicely when she was feeling wounded. And man-o-man could she wield a cigarette! It was a totally marvelous experience to watch her! I have the DVD and if they ever go out of fashion, mine will still be here. She definitely should have had an Oscar for that performance! Maybe it was just too short. It was 'way too short for me.
Peder
 
StillILearn said:
What I remember her saying about Franciosa was that on the way home from getting divorced from each other, he stopped the car and asked her if she wanted to have sex then and there, and she said "Sure!" That's what I recall, anyway. :D
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StillILearn,
Soooooo? What's divorce got to do with it anyway? :)
Peder
 
steffee said:
I, er... haven't heard of "the madeleine" :eek: I think I need to do some amazoning... I have heard of the "Proust Effect" though, and that alone makes me want to taste it, or sniff it!
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Steffee,
Well, no, not a lot of people have heard of the reverie that tea and a madeleine induced for the narrator. But there are many more who will talk about it than have read about it. :) I didn't mean anything else.
Peder
 
Peder said:
Steffee,
Well, no, not a lot of people have heard of the reverie that tea and a madeleine induced for the narrator. But there are many more who will talk about it than have read about it. :) I didn't mean anything else.
Peder
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Oh, so "the madeleine" is an actual "madeleine", like a cake, not a "madeleine" female name? I am going to have to read this now, lol :)
 
steffee said:
Oh, so "the madeleine" is an actual "madeleine", like a cake, not a "madeleine" female name? I am going to have to read this now, lol :)
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Steffee,
Yes, what I would call a cookie. Here's a link that knows much more than I do about them.

Madeleine cookies

And you had better not scroll too far down on that page unless you want to be overcome with an irresistible urge to have some. :)

If you google on 'madeleine cookies' there's a whole bunch more of links where that one came from.

Peder
 
Peder said:
Sorry to hear the sad news and yay SIL for putting that new avatar up.
Shelley winters was Big Haze for me also, a force bigger than all life in that film. Someone once remarked that James Mason seemed subdued in the film. Alongside her Big haze it is amazing that he showed up at all. She exuded energy, she had personality, and she had attitude. And she could wilt and pout so nicely when she was feeling wounded. And man-o-man could she wield a cigarette! It was a totally marvelous experience to watch her! I have the DVD and if they ever go out of fashion, mine will still be here. She definitely should have had an Oscar for that performance! Maybe it was just too short. It was 'way too short for me.
Peder
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The tango scene wherein she was trying to seduce Mason was truly wonderful, wasn't it? :D Perfection on both their parts. And, as you said, it was hard to take your eyes off Winters.
 
Peder said:
Steffee,
Yes, what I would call a cookie. Here's a link that knows much more than I do about them.

If you google on 'madeleine cookies' there's a whole bunch more of links where that one came from.
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Thanks for the link! You're right, they look delicious! Ooops, I didn't realise you lot over the pond called them "cookies" :eek:

And oh, it has the paragraph!! :eek: :D
 

steffee
you lot over the pond called them "cookies"
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You Lot indeed! :D

Peder Great Link! I needed more recipes. :rolleyes: especially the fattening ones.:D

And...Yes! "The Paragraph". I may be hooked.;)

StillILearn!
What I remember her saying about Franciosa was that on the way home from getting divorced from each other, he stopped the car and asked her if she wanted to have sex then and there, and she said "Sure!" That's what I recall, anyway.
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Great Quote SIL! Ah, Shelley!;) :D :p :eek:
 
Peder said:
Steffee,
Well, no, not a lot of people have heard of the reverie that tea and a madeleine induced for the narrator. But there are many more who will talk about it than have read about it. :) I didn't mean anything else.
Peder
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I cheated, of course, and listened to it on tape. It was the only way in which I was ever going to do it. :eek:
 
No, no, I will stop procrastinating tomorrow. Not today, which is your tomorrow, but my tomorrow, which is tomorrow, not today, not now. Tomorrow. :confused:
 
Don'tcha jes luv time travel? :D

Can y'all imagine Little Lo in the present? Nowadays, she'd probably have clobbered Humbert the Horrible in a trice, and mopped the floor with him.

But otoh, poor Humbert. Just think what "modern psychiatry" coulda done him, oops, I mean for him. :p He probably would have been given electric shock treatments, and lobotomized to the Nth degree.:(

Either that, or he'd have been the sexual Hannibal Lector..........Movies I, II, and of course III. Quilty doing the screenplays...natch. /evil grin/
 
pontalba said:
Can y'all imagine Little Lo in the present? Nowadays, she'd probably have clobbered Humbert the Horrible in a trice, and mopped the floor with him.
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She'd have shot him. And all her classmates. Maybe.

pontalba said:
But otoh, poor Humbert. Just think what "modern psychiatry" coulda done him, oops, I mean for him. :p He probably would have been given electric shock treatments, and lobotomized to the Nth degree.:(
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Oh yes, Electro-Convulsive Therapy, they'd have said he is depressed. At least you get muscle relaxant with that now though, lol, bless him...

pontalba said:
Either that, or he'd have been the sexual Hannibal Lector..........Movies I, II, and of course III. Quilty doing the screenplays...natch. /evil grin/
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Yes, III The Final Chapter, then IV, and V -- will Humbert Humbert ever stop preying on under-teen-age girls?
 
What Im loving best of all about this conversation is that there isn't one single person around here yelling at us to get back on subject. ;)
 
From A Casebook, the study by Thomas R. Frosch Parody and Authenticity in Lolita p.43
Nabokov detests psychiatrists and literary critics, and it against these types of readers--or these metaphors for the Reader--that Humbert wages constant war. Anti-Freudianism is one of Nabokov's pet themes,and Humbert is a man who, in his periodic vacations in insane asylums, loves nothing more than to take on a psychiatrist in a battle of wits. his chief defense against a psychoanalytic interpretation of Lolita is to admit it readily and dismiss it as trite and unhelpful. When he describes his gun, he says, "We must remember that a pistol is the Freudian symbol of the Urfather's central forelimb" (218); Humbert beats the analysts to the draw and says, in effect, "So what?" At another point, he anticipates a Freudian prediction that he will try to complete his fantasy by having intercourse with Lolita on a beach. "Of course he tried, Humbert says. In fact, he went out of his way to look for a suitable beach, not in the grip of unconscious forces but in "rational pursuit of a purely theoretical thrill" and when he found his beach, it was so damp, stony, and uncomfortable that "for the first time in my life I had as little desire for her as for a manatee" (169).
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"a manatee"??? Ewwwww.......
Talk about a picture in the brain!
 
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