Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

[steffee]

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!

LOL, I've never thought about it quite like that before!

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 way! Jeez, that wouldn't have even been Lolita then, it would have been yet another heartbreak story.

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!

Come on everyone, you heard the man!! Seriously, it's fantastic. I am in two minds about The Enchanter (I will mention that in its proper thread though, while I try to work out if the Lolita-type who's nothing like Lo actually has a name, and what it is) and I think the main reason is that I'm itching to get back to Ada

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.

So how do you choose?!!!

 

[steffee]

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.

YES!! That's how I feel. Actually, sometimes I haven't even got a Top Of The List, I want to read them all at once, which is just completely absurd!

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 yes, I owe you an apology then, I think I misquoted (well, not quoted, but you know) you (well, not actually 'you' either, but you know)

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.

YES!! It was. I am trying to get on the Enchanter thread, I keep getting distracted with all those fabulous links, and how did all those pages get there? I don't spend nearly enough time on this forum!

 

[StillILearn]

steffee =

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).

It appears that you enjoyed exactly the same scenes that VN chose as his favorites, steffee.

I was just reading about that today in the Pifer Casebook. Although VN was credited with the entire screenplay, they didn't actually use his work, but he later picked out these very same scenes for his own words of praise.

Once again, good eye!

 

[pontalba]

Steffee wrote=Oh yes, I owe you an apology then, I think I misquoted (well, not quoted, but you know) you (well, not actually 'you' either, but you know)

Oh No You Don't!! I couldn't stand Sellers in the film!

and she wrote- I don't spend nearly enough time on this forum!

Thats right! You don't! But I suppose some
would say that schooling is important....

Look at it this way....maybe we spend too much time here.
not really!

 

[steffee]

It appears that you enjoyed exactly the same scenes that VN chose as his favorites, steffee.

I was just reading about that today in the Pifer Casebook. Although VN was credited with the entire screenplay, they didn't actually use his work, but he later picked out these very same scenes for his own words of praise.

Once again, good eye!

Wow!

 

[steffee]

Look at it this way....maybe we spend too much time here.
not really!

Noooooooo!!

 

[pontalba]

Steffee wrote-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

Well, if we do Ada.......I give you for your consideration......

"Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness"
Brian Boyd


www.amazon.com

 

[steffee]

Well, if we do Ada.......I give you for your consideration......

"Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness"
Brian Boyd

Ooh it looks good!! I just might have to set up a wishlist and subtly email it to all my friends and family in time for my birthday

 

[Peder]

Well, if we do Ada.......I give you for your consideration......

"Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness"
Brian Boyd


www.amazon.com

Oh, nooooooooooooooo! Not agaaaaaaaaaaain!

 

[Peder]

Ooh it looks good!! I just might have to set up a wishlist and subtly email it to all my friends and family in time for my birthday

Steffe,
And just what would you do with ten copies of Boyd, one for each finger?
Peder

 

[Peder]

So how do you choose?!!!

Steffee,
Hate to tell ya this, but you are part of the choosing! And if we suddenly catch an Ada compulsion it might be your fault, er credit, I mean! /good fault!/
But to answer your question, ideas just ooze to the surface
Or fall like meteorites, where they will.
So far Enchanter is the only full blown book birth.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Steffe,
And just what would you do with ten copies of Boyd, one for each finger?
Peder

Oh yeah, I never thought of that. Amazon gift certificates might be a better choice then

 

[steffee]

Hate to tell ya this, but you are part of the choosing! And if we suddenly catch an Ada compulsion it might be your fault, er credit, I mean! /good fault!/

Oh no, I dunno if I could live with that responsibility ... nah, really Ada is just amazing.

 

[Peder]

while I try to work out if the Lolita-type who's nothing like Lo actually has a name, and what it is

Well, Steffee,
You could call her the Girl, or /tongue stuck way in cheek/ The Skirt.
/running like mad /
Peder

 

[steffee]

Well, Steffee,
You could call her the Girl, or /tongue stuck way in cheek/ The Skirt.
/running like mad /
Peder

 

[Peder]

Oh no, I dunno if I could live with that responsibility ... nah, really Ada is just amazing.

Steffee,
OK, if you're gunna fight like that! j/k j/k :
Now you really have me convinced says he! /reaching right now for Ada/
Oh, wow! Picture of a wooo-eee girl on the cover! And a family tree. and the most undisclaiming editorial disclaimer I have ever seen! And OMG OMG, it opens with the line I immediately recognize! /Falls down dead, flat/

OK everybody, officially register me as a reader.

Many thanks Steffee,
See how easy it is?
Peder
Co-President of the Weak-Willed
j/k I do like the way it starts out.

 

[steffee]

Peder
Co-President of the Weak-Willed

LOL! Thanks Peder, for such an hilarious post!

 

[Peder]

LOL! Thanks Peder, for such an hilarious post!

Steffe,
Mne thanks, but as i now read further in Ada I am really chuckling, because I really thought that was the first line from AnnaK., but looking more closely at it I now realize it is not! That VN has nabbed me completely, as a penalty for my skimming.
So now Dolly [!], for Darya, will join me for my morning coffee.
CU in a bit
Peder

 

[steffee]

Mne thanks, but as i now read further in Ada I am really chuckling, because I really thought that was the first line from AnnaK
So now Dolly [!], for Darya, will join me for my morning coffee.
CU in a bit
Peder

I thought that too, lol!
What edition do you have?! My cover has only a flower on the front, and Dolly is spelled Daria in this one

 

[steffee]

Also, a little quote, if you all don't mind (seeing as we don't yet have an Ada thread ) to link it (a teeny weeny bit) to Lolita...

"such nymphs were really very much alike because of their elemental limpidity since the similarities of young bodies of water are but murmurs of natural innocence and double-talk mirrors" p.17 Ada

I really, really don't think I want to read Speak, Memory!