Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017580, Thu, 8 Jan 2009 11:53:47 -0200

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Re: Helen Mirren as Lolita?
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David A. Krol, from a review yesterday in the NY Times of two new DVD releases of films by the great British director, Michael Powell:[...] “Age of Consent,” based on a 1935 novel by the Australian artist and sybarite Norman Lindsay [...] invested in the character played by James Mason [...] on an isolated beach, where he finds inspiration in the form of sand, sea and Cora, a remarkable teenage girl [...]Played by a 23-year-old Helen Mirren [...]
Produced by Mason and Powell, “Age of Consent” hardly seems innocent in casting the star of Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” (1962) in another tale of middle-aged yearning for underage flesh [...]alhough this time the fantasy element is emphasized by making Cora the aggressor [...]Metaphorically, “Age of Consent” is about an artist falling back in love with his art — something Powell needed to do after the scathing experience of “Peeping Tom.”

JM: In the present review one of the differences bt. movies "Age of Consent" and "Lolita" arises from that "the fantasy element is emphasized by making Cora the aggressor". The movie producer's disingenuousness should not be similar to our own...
The metaphor about "an artist falling back in love with his art", though, is apt in relation to Lindsay and, perhaps, to Nabokov, too ( but for the latter I would delete "back" from "falling back", since VN was a most constant lover).

Speaking of allusions, perhaps I'm mistaken by assuming that Couturier had implied a link between Charlotte Haze & the ancient procuress Charlotte Hayes, ie, that Couturier had indeed restricted his find to Charlotte Hayes, a motel owner.
Both Ch.( Haze and Hayes in HH's "Confessions") possess similar-sounding names and, as it has been pointed out to me off-List, both rent a room to HH.
Perhaps their connection and resemblances are only a product of HH's deranged mind.
HH obviously created Mrs.Hayes in a delusional Erlkönig-Mary Lore mood. So it is reasonable to suppose that, while naming her in retrospect he might have comitted a lapsus.
If the find connecting C.Hayes/Fanny Hill/Apollinaire to "Lolita" is to be restricted to the Hayes motel-owner, not to Lolita's mother, perhaps there is no reason to give it the importance we've been assuming it has, since the motel-owner is scarcely mentioned.
However it is exciting to encounter this link as a background stimulus in HH's actual confabulation. In that (freudian?) instance I would understand this allusion a representing a master stroke!

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