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Vladimir Nabokov wasn't desperately seeking the right character
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Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/08/thorn-latest-literary-dish-serves-up-authors/
Latest literary dish serves up authors
By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Friday, August 8, 2008
Some people like to think of authors as shy and retiring. But that's only because they never met Jacqueline Susann.
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Unlike Mitchell, Vladimir Nabokov wasn't desperately seeking the right character name for his story. He was searching for the right publisher.
Nabokov's Lolita, the tale of his protagonist's unseemly love for a 12-year-old girl, was initially rejected by every publisher who read it, according to Bond and Sheedy. Finally, Nabokov resorted to a house known for "peddling smut," including a series of sex novels with titles like With Open Mouth and White Thighs.
With an inauspicious start like that, Lolita was destined to lapse into obscurity - until fate set an unlikely series of events in motion: Graham Greene sung the novel's praises during an interview with The Times of London, prompting the editor of the competing Sunday Express to call it "the filthiest book I've ever read," which prompted a ban of the book in the U.K. and France.
You know what they say about forbidden fruit. All that attention piqued the interest of a U.S. publisher, and the rest is Humbert Humbert history. The novel sold 100,000 copies its first three weeks out.
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"When we were at the Essex House and I had room service and I could buy all my Florence Lustig dresses, I found that I loved you very much," she wrote, just warming to her topic. "But now that you're in the army and getting $56 a month, I feel that my love has waned."
Pass the M&M's and turn the page.
thornp@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5419
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