Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011702, Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:50:12 -0700

Subject
ParaNabokoviana. Lolita
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----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 10:37:44 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: older than Nabokovs Lolita ...
To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050814/asp/look/story_5094874.asp[2]
http://ww1.mid-day.com/columns/amit_roy/2005/august/116263.htm[3]

Royal row over pin-up
Mid-Day Mumbai, India & Calcutta Telegraph, India - 14 August 2005
... Thus begins VLADIMIR NABOKOV’s 1955 novel, Lolita, about an older
man’s passion for an under-age girl — the kind of subject Bollywood
dare not touch. ...

The Duchess and her daughter in the Daily Mail

Row over royal pin-up

By: Amit Roy
August 14, 2005

London: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my
soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps
down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one
sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. Dolores on the
dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, Lolita, about an older
man’s passion for an under-age girl — the kind of subject Bollywood
dare not touch. The novel is worth reading to obtain a better
understanding of why Lolita-ish photographs of the Queen’s
granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, in the glossy magazine, Tatler,
have aroused admiration and uneasiness in equal measure.

Beatrice, who is the daughter of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, the
Duchess of York, was 16 when the photographs were taken for the cover
story, “Royal sweetheart”. She has just turned 17.

Beatrice agreed to pose for the pictures and give her first
interview to Tatler in return for a donation to a charity which tries
to help children with dyslexia from which she herself suffers.

But should her mother, who has been involved in many a scandal in
the past, have allowed her daughter be to packaged in so alluring a
manner?

“Anything you can do, Mum,” was the perceptive headline in the Daily
Mail.

A Scottish newspaper remarkably protested at her early
sexualisation: “The pose is sexy and glamorous. The soulful eyes of a
beautiful teenager smoulder seductively as her head turns over her
bare shoulder to look out from a glossy magazine cover, her chestnut
hair cascading in wild curls down to a siren-red silky evening gown.
It’s an image that would sell thousands of copies of the sort of
gentlemen’s publications that occupy the upper shelves at the
newsagents.”

At 17, Beatrice can claim to be a young adult, a good five years
older than Nabokov’s Lolita or four years senior to Shakespeare’s
Juliet.

However, others have pointed out that if Beatrice were now to be
hounded by tabloid photographers, neither she nor her mother could
make a case for invasion of privacy.

amitr@mid-day.com[4]
[5]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.telegraphindia.com/
[2] http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050814/asp/look/story_5094874.asp
[3] http://ww1.mid-day.com/columns/amit_roy/2005/august/116263.htm
[4] mailto:amitr@mid-day.com
[5] http://ww1.mid-day.com/

----- End forwarded message -----