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HtoHe
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« on: 20:04:05, 01-02-2008 » |
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I knew it wasn't April 1st yet so this story absolutely astonished me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7222008.stmIt seems Woolies actually had this bed on the market before anyone realised there might be a problem with the name. Given that there have already been two mainstream film versions of Nabokov's story one would hardly need a literature buff to know the connotations of the name. In a strange twist, PM this evening reported that Woolworth's staff had to look the word up on the internet to see what all the fuss was about. I bet they've got lots of staff in rather humbler jobs than senior marketing who could have told them what 'Lolita' meant on the web. I don't think I view the past through the proverbial rose-tinted; but I'm sure any 'creative' of 20 or 30 years ago - ie before the recent paedo panic - would have known the significance of 'Lolita' even if they hadn't read the novel. It seems, though, that marketing departments are now firmly in the hands of people who think Dolores Haze is one of a range of air fresheners. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #1 on: 20:41:25, 01-02-2008 » |
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I agree, it's extraordinarily crass to have missed the connotations the name "Lolita" suggest.
Of course, if one reads the book, there are all sorts of ways of understanding it. Bearing in mind that the first thing Humbert tells us is that he always lies... it's quite possible that the entire story is his own sad fantasy?
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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martle
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« Reply #2 on: 20:43:50, 01-02-2008 » |
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Bearing in mind that the first thing Humbert tells us is that he always lies... But not always on a bed.  (ok, coat is almost on now...) |
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Green. Always green.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 21:39:59, 01-02-2008 » |
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Martle  That joke almost made up for the 3.5 hours of my life spent watching Rodion Schedrin's opera LOLITA (aka two solid hours of clusters). |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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time_is_now
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« Reply #4 on: 02:19:14, 04-02-2008 » |
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the first thing Humbert tells us is that he always lies Which comment are you thinking of, Reiner? The book has one of the most virtuosically micro-managed openings I can think of in any novel, but I'm not sure what you're getting at here. 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. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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George Garnett
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« Reply #5 on: 09:51:33, 04-02-2008 » |
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"Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."
OK, hands up. How many had to look for a pencil and paper to work that out when they first read it? Don't tell me I'm the only one.  |
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« Last Edit: 09:53:33, 04-02-2008 by George Garnett »
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increpatio
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« Reply #6 on: 10:28:14, 04-02-2008 » |
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I linked a friend to this, and he commented how after seeing the film he thought 'lolita' was an ace name, and that it was a pity that it was not a done name nowadays. Anyway, I just plotted the following graph, that shows that he was not the only one with that reaction:  |
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martle
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« Reply #7 on: 11:41:04, 04-02-2008 » |
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Gosh, it pays to have a mathematician on board sometimes, does not it?
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Green. Always green.
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #8 on: 12:38:59, 04-02-2008 » |
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I agree, it's extraordinarily crass to have missed the connotations the name "Lolita" suggest. The cynic in me wants to believe that they understood it only too well and thought it would be a selling point (and are now pretending otherwise to save face). I'm honestly not sure which of the two explanations bothers me the most  |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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Morticia
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« Reply #9 on: 12:49:13, 04-02-2008 » |
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IRF, my inner cynic agrees with you I find it very difficult to believe that no one was aware of the baggage that the name Lolita carries with it. |
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