Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

[pontalba]

As mentioned over on the other thread, I have finally been catching up with reading the Lolita Commemorative essays in the Christmas 2005 issue of Playboy. Here's a long excerpt from the essay by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.
[/RIGHT]
Peder

Hmmm...is that the beginning of a new thread I hear??

Quote:
Originally Posted by pontalba
Right! Thats never happened!


Pontalba,
/big chuckle heard 'round the room/
Sorry,
Peder

Better not be sorry1

 

[pontalba]

I just went ahead and one clicked Pale Fire. I've been dancing all around it.

Yay SIL! I was fortunate enough to snag a nice hardback copy at a library sale right before the hurricane. I have to find out when they are having another one. Nevah know what'll turn up there!

But I have to say that Pale Fire is near the bottom of my Nabokov stack.

 

[Peder]

Hmmm...is that the beginning of a new thread I hear??

Hi Pontalba,
Well, I was hoping that this thread still had considerable life in it, especially since I think there are yet some people who have Enchanter on the way (SFG, Steffee, Ruby who I think might yet contribute).

Plus, just thinking out loud, there's maybe Vera, maybe RLiT, and who knows maybe even an Ada discussion? Although it is the first two of those that might attract more general interest out in TBF land. But yes that might indeed have been the beginning of a new thread you heard.

Just to murky the discussion, I have started Mary, his very first novel, partly because it is thin, party because it is his first. Curious to see his style back then at the beginning.

And will be rereading Enchanter again, this time with special emphasis on the snake, in case we wish to discuss his ways.

And any suggestions anyone wants to add.

Plus I finally got my pdf reader to read, so I'll be looking at the article that SFG posted the link for, which none of us could read back then. Maybe they have corrected the file and eliminated an error, and others here might have a second go at it also.

And that's what's cooking here,
Not that you quite really asked
But just anyway,
Peder

 

[Peder]

PS Evidently I was confused which thread I was in with the Enchanter remarks.
P.

 

[pontalba]

Peder Yes, that was one of my open ended questions....

I'll try that pdf thing again as you say that. Today someone told me that perhaps I needed to download a (free) copy of the Adobe Reader #6, as that was probably the problem. Mine is old, I don't know what number it is though.

I wasn't hurrying things along, as The Enchanter and Lolita and Vera still have plenty of milage in them, just future fantasizing..... Plus we could always throw in Speak Memory with Madam Nabokov.

Plus I have a few lil ole books on the way......

 

[pontalba]

PS Evidently I was confused which thread I was in with the Enchanter remarks.
P.

Same Difference!

 

[Peder]

I'll try that pdf thing again as you say that. Today someone told me that perhaps I needed to download a (free) copy of the Adobe Reader #6, as that was probably the problem. Mine is old, I don't know what number it is though.

Pontalba,
I actually went searching for a pdf reader and found a free one called Foxit that requires less memory than Adobe's. That is the one that worked for me with the file, on 2nd try. I'll go looking for it again and find a link.
Peder

 

[Peder]

Pontalba et al.
This is the free pdf reader I came across.

Foxit

Worked fine for me.

Haven't tried my Adobe reader lately.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Peder Thanks, I'll try it.

Regarding VN's early works, thats what I liked about his short story book, it starts with his earliest and works thru chronologically. They claim its a good way to see progression. Course, I haven't gotten to too much of it yet. oy.

 

[Peder]

Peder Thanks, I'll try it.

Regarding VN's early works, thats what I liked about his short story book, it starts with his earliest and works thru chronologically. They claim its a good way to see progression. Course, I haven't gotten to too much of it yet. oy.

Pontalba,
Yes indeed! One sees all the world of difference even between intermediate Enchanter and later Lolita.

One of the reviews on amazon, for one of his last works (I forget which one ), refers to its complexity as being such that noone knows what is going on: not any of the characters, not the narrator, and of course not the reader! That's the one I can hardly wait to get to, but I thought I'd do simple first.

So far, nevertheless, Mary does start out satisfyingly like Nabokov -- two strangers talking to each other in a dark elevator stuck between floors, then introducing themselves and trying to shake hands in the pitch black darkness,

But everyone forget I said that;
It's off-topic and we are already reading enough books.
Peder

 

[Peder]

Today someone told me that perhaps I needed to download a (free) copy of the Adobe Reader #6, as that was probably the problem. Mine is old, I don't know what number it is though.

Pontalba,
Sounds like.
My old Adobe reader wouldn't open the file when I just tried. (Actually neither of two pdf files that I downloaded).
Time to get modern,
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

Vera

Meanwhile, for some reason, Stacy Schiff has been cracking me up lately:

The misprints were to life in Montreaux as the rattlers had been to the American West; Vera wielded only her typewriter i self-defense. At times she appeared to be struggling single-handedly to keep the world from rumbling into a state of "glossological disarray."

And when informed that James Mason's daughter was dating a member of the group "Blood, Sweat and Tears", Vera hoped it "wasn't the middle one".

 

[StillILearn]

Pontalba et al.
This is the free pdf reader I came across.

Foxit

Worked fine for me. Haven't tried my Adobe reader lately. Peder

If this works for me, I will owe you my thanks. My Adobe reader hasn't been doing me any favors lately either.

Butterflies!

 

[Peder]

Meanwhile, for some reason, Stacy Schiff has been cracking me up lately:

And when informed that James Mason's daughter was dating a member of the group "Blood, Sweat and Tears", Vera hoped it "wasn't the middle one".

ROTFLOL Still,
Shiff really does seem to have the eye and the pen for the telling phrase! I think maybe she'd have fit right in with V&V at the dinner table. (But he would have put her to work . Actually she, more likely! )
Peder

 

[Peder]

If this works for me, I will owe you my thanks. My Adobe reader hasn't been doing me any favors lately either.

Butterflies!

Still,
Mine neither. I just tried downloading the latest Adobe reader and my teeny laptop computer didn't have enough remaining space for it (which is strange in its own way, but that's the next problem ). Acrobat requires 17+ MB it seems, Foxit only about 1.
So good luck, but I think fair winds are with you with Foxit.
Peder

PS just got it! Butterflies. Very Nabokovian
P

 

[pontalba]

I've only gotten to the Prague section right before Vera left Berlin. VN was still in Paris. The rotter. But I can well believe he was a charmer, his books prove it. I love this from p,87:

Few believed him capapble of living without his wife. Blind passion was one thing, all-knowing intimacy a rarer commodity.

/sigh/
a fire in the bones........

Well actually they are in Paris now.......

 

[StillILearn]

I've only gotten to the Prague section right before Vera left Berlin. VN was still in Paris. The rotter. But I can well believe he was a charmer, his books prove it. I love this from p,87:

/sigh/ a fire in the bones........Well actually they are in Paris now.......

V&V were obviously meant for each other from the start, that's for sure; the more I read, the more certain I am of that. Can you imagine the wide-eyed Svetlana weathering all those Nabokovian storms? I can't. Those Slonim girls were made of sterner stuff. And the willowy Irina never could have dreamed what she was (almost) letting herself in for!

 

[steffee]

I have no problem with adobe, haven't a clue which version I have but every time I click a link to a pdf document, I get a pop-up mentioning that adobe now does images, or something along those lines.

I have The Enchanter and am halfway through it...

I saw another post somewhere back there ^^^ about an Ada thread, or maybe I imagined it, but what a fantastic idea! I have read about 60 pages of Ada - before The Enchanter arrived and I just couldn't resist - which is going as well as I imagined, and more.

But back to the original Lolita, I saw the second film version (well, the first, if you want order of release, but second in order of my viewing) which was just as great as the first, mostly. I liked the ending to this one too, and several scenes throughout, such as when HH first arrives at the Haze houseold, and is undecided until he sees Lo, then immediately decides to take the room, and Charlotte says "what decided it? the garden?" Ha ha ha. I loved the scene where Charlotte Haze wrote him that letter, asking him to leave unless he was in love with her, and he laughed and laughed. He had this contagious type of laughter that defies anyone to refrain from joining in.

And I liked the scene where he was lying on top of her on the bed, looking at a photograph of Lo, and Charlotte is talking of renting Lo's room out. And also when he is in the bath after Charlotte has died, and the beginning, the scene with Quilty and the ping pong, which was actually the end of the story (that I recall someone ^^^ saying wasn't very good).

I'm not too sure about Lolita. She acted a lot older than 12, going to dances and staying out until midnight, or even overnight!! I can't remember that from the book, but I thought it made the character of Lo appear much older than she was.

Vera, and Speak, Memory, and Pale Fire and another I spotted in the library today, which looked a shortie, and all those other interesting books you lot are mentioning faster than I can read. I need to organise a little list of what needs to be read and when... hopefully I might even be able to squeeze in this month's BOTM too, and next month's, which I have and am almost as excited about as I am about Ada. Almost!

 

[Peder]

I have no problem with adobe, haven't a clue which version I have but every time I click a link to a pdf document, I get a pop-up mentioning that adobe now does images, or something along those lines.

I have The Enchanter and am halfway through it...

I saw another post somewhere back there ^^^ about an Ada thread, or maybe I imagined it, but what a fantastic idea! I have read about 60 pages of Ada - before The Enchanter arrived and I just couldn't resist - which is going as well as I imagined, and more.

But back to the original Lolita, I saw the second film version (well, the first, if you want order of release, but second in order of my viewing) which was just as great as the first, mostly. I liked the ending to this one too, and several scenes throughout, such as when HH first arrives at the Haze houseold, and is undecided until he sees Lo, then immediately decides to take the room, and Charlotte says "what decided it? the garden?" Ha ha ha. I loved the scene where Charlotte Haze wrote him that letter, asking him to leave unless he was in love with her, and he laughed and laughed. He had this contagious type of laughter that defies anyone to refrain from joining in.

And I liked the scene where he was lying on top of her on the bed, looking at a photograph of Lo, and Charlotte is talking of renting Lo's room out. And also when he is in the bath after Charlotte has died, and the beginning, the scene with Quilty and the ping pong, which was actually the end of the story (that I recall someone ^^^ saying wasn't very good).

I'm not too sure about Lolita. She acted a lot older than 12, going to dances and staying out until midnight, or even overnight!! I can't remember that from the book, but I thought it made the character of Lo appear much older than she was.

Vera, and Speak, Memory, and Pale Fire and another I spotted in the library today, which looked a shortie, and all those other interesting books you lot are mentioning faster than I can read. I need to organise a little list of what needs to be read and when... hopefully I might even be able to squeeze in this month's BOTM too, and next month's, which I have and am almost as excited about as I am about Ada. Almost!

Ahhh, Steffee,

So good to hear from you!
That sounds like great news on all fronts!
Glad that you enjoyed the movie! I'm going to have to look at both of them again now that my views have evolved, especially to resfresh my memories of the sccenes from his/their farewell to Lo onward. Those are the ones with Humbert's presumably most 'genuine' emotions showing and I love teary endings anyway. The scene of her standing in the doorway is the kind to engrave itself on one's memory. It breaks my heart; it would have to be devastating on Humbert. No wonder he wanted to kill someone!

I had forgotten the ping-pong scene and yes it is high humor with Quilty serving the balls and making up those fantastic imaginary excuses to explain why Mason must not be returning the serve.
And Mason chuckling/laughing as he reads Charlotte's letter is almost beyond imagining also. In fact, I do find it unimaginable that he was able to create such a genuine looking reaction on cue, or even any time. But that's part of why he got the big bucks, I suppose./sigh/

In between the lines of its serious story, the story is very laugh out loud funny as well, like that bathtub scene. Somehow Nabokov put that all together.

I thnk Lo had to look as old as she did, otherwise the howls would have been even louder than they were. There was even the sugguestion from Kubrick (no less) that they actually be a married couple, to try to tone it down! That would have made Mason laugh a genuine laugh worth 10 million bucks! No, I didn't think the book had her acting very old at all. She always sounded like a gangly pre-teen to me, all knees and elbows and flopping about, chewing gum and talking mindlesss slang.

I am glad to hear your reaction to Ada, if I read it right. That makes two thumbs up (yourself and the Playboy article) so i don't now how much longer I am going to be able to resist. It is just off to my left here, staring hard at me. That could eventually be yet another thread, since I think we now have three 'owners' with 1 'reader,' yourself, already reading it. One or two more and we could be in high gear down the line!

But if you think you are going to keep up with all the books you hear mentioned, fuhgeddaboudit! We each of us are pretty much only reading one at a time. It's just that they are all different. If we were each reading three or four then you would indeed have a daunting task to drive you crazy. But one at a time will get you there, and we will be exceedingly glad to hear from you, whenever you can, about any one you read. It will be like news from the outside world! I'm waiting for the shriek from your shore when you get to the main scene in Enchanter. I'm not sure how we are going to discuss that one, but I guess just put on the hot mitts from the kitchen.

Re Adobe: it took all morning getting files rearranged and making space, but mine (Version 6) eventually installed and makes a very nice page. I think Foxit looks just a tad fuzzier, but it really does well for being so much smaller.

All the best,
And hang in there,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Hi Steffee! It is good to hear from you again. Glad you're enjoying The Enchanter. The different Nabokov novels keep migrating up and down my Nabokov Stack, right now I want to read Sebastian Knight next, but that could change at any time. One must be flexible in these things. Reading Vera supplies almost more insight on him than her. I also enjoy the ability to get a handle on VN's moods whilst writing various of his books. Its a hard one to put down and attend to "Life".

As far as the two films, it was me that really didn't like Peter Sellers in the role, but the ping pong scene was pretty good, if only for the discombobulated look on Mason's face! It was the digressions of Sellers such as the one at the Enchanter Hunters Hotel, that I found so especially repellant. The original scene as VN wrote it, and depicted in the Irons version were perfection. IMO. And of course the disguise as the school woman that came to see Humbert. Oh! And the tub scene after Charlotte's death was simply priceless!!!

Hope you are able to get over to the other thread and post your insights on The Enchanter.

Peder wrote: I'm waiting for the shriek from your shore when you get to the main scene in Enchanter. I'm not sure how we are going to discuss that one, but I guess just put on the hot mitts from the kitchen.

Hot oven mitts is a slight understatement! But I am sure we will manage in your usual, unequaled style!

V&V were obviously meant for each other from the start, that's for sure; the more I read, the more certain I am of that. Can you imagine the wide-eyed Svetlana weathering all those Nabokovian storms? I can't. Those Slonim girls were made of sterner stuff. And the willowy Irina never could have dreamed what she was (almost) letting herself in for!

Boy you are so not kidding!! I am just about 1949ish now, I can hardly put it down!