Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002340, Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:59:09 -0700

Subject
Re: The New Lolita Film (fwd)
Date
Body
I should probably offer a belated apology for the strong language employed
in the article from a different list (with meaner manners, obviously!),
and I hope it did not offend anyone's sensibilities too much. According
to Marc Szeftel, VN used to boast that he wrote the whole of LOLITA
without using a single "bad" word, despite its sexually-charged
descriptions. But, as a Russian proverb says, one cannot throw a word out
of a song ("iz pesni slova ne vykinesh'" -- isn't it ironic that a
_Russian_ proverb should say that, given the country's rich history of
censorship?), so I did not feel I could legitimately modify "the printed
word" no matter how coarse.


GD