FILMCLUB BOOKCLUB

Lolita Lolita

Directed by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain and

Melanie Griffith.

Forbidden, Provocative, Unforgettable.

Vladimir Nabokov

A forbidden love. An unthinkable attraction. The ultimate price.

Thursday, January 16th, at 7 pm Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia

(Library)

Friday, January 17th, at 7 pm Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia

(Library)

About the book

Excerpt of a review from The New York Times by Elizabeth Janeway (17/08/58): The first time I read Lolita I thought it was one of the funniest books I’d ever come on. The second time I read it, I thought it was one of the saddest. I mention this personal reaction only because Lolita is one of those occasional books which arrive swishing behind them a long tail of opinion and reputation which can knock the unwary reader off his feet. Is it shocking, is it pornographic, is it immoral? Is its reading to be undertaken not as a simple experience but as a conscious action which will place one on this, or that, side of a critical dividing line? What does the Watch and Ward Society say of it? What does Sartre, Graham Greene or Partisan Review? This is hard on any book. Lolita stands up to it wonderfully well, though even its author has felt it necessary to contribute an epilogue on his intentions. This, by the way, seems to me quite as misleading as the purposely absurd (and very funny) prologue by “John Ray Jr., Ph. D.,” who is a beautifully constructed caricature of American Academic Bumbledom. But in providing a series of trompe-l’oeil frames for the action of his book, Vladimir Nabokov has undoubtedly been acting with intent: they are screens as well as

frames. He is not writing for the ardent and simple-minded civil-libertarian any more than he is writing for the private libertine; he is writing for readers, and those who can read him simply will be well rewarded. Read the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-r-

lolita.html Nabokov’s portrait by Yousuf Karsh.

Lower photo: sue Lyon in Kubricks ‘Lolita’’

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