http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4846479[2]

50 Years Later, 'Lolita' Still Seduces Readers
NPR, D.C. - 2 hours ago
That's the opening line of VLADIMIR NABOKOV\'S groundbreaking novel
Lolita -- the story of a 37-year-old man's emotional and sexual love
affair with a 12-year ...

[3] Authors

50 YEARS LATER, \'LOLITA\' STILL SEDUCES READERS

by Madeleine Brand[4]Audio for this story will be available at
approx. 3:00 p.m. ET

Sue Lyon as the title character in Stanley Kubrick's 1961 film
version of _Lolita_, with a screenplay written by Nabokov. Warner
Bros. © 2001

* VIDEO: Humbert Humbert first meets Lolita in a classic scene from
the Stanley Kubrick film.

Hulton-Deutsch Collection

Vladimir Nabokov in Rome in 1959, after _Lolita_ made him an
international celebrity. CORBIS © 2005

* WEB EXTRA: Nabokov reads the central poem from _Lolita_ to a rapt
audience, April 1964.

Hulton-Deutsch Collection

Customers in a London bookstore with copies of _Lolita_ after its
1959 release in Great Britain. CORBIS © 2005

AN AUDIO \'LOLITA\'

Hear actor Jeremy Irons read from the unabridged, 10-CD Random House
audio version of Nabokov's book:

* It begins: 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.'
* ...and it comes to an end: 'This then is my story.'

Day to Day[5], September 14, 2005 · "Lolita, light of my life, fire
of my loins. My sin, my soul."

That's the opening line of Vladimir Nabokov's groundbreaking novel
_Lolita_ -- the story of a 37-year-old man's emotional and sexual
love affair with a 12-year-old girl.

When the book was first published 50 years ago, it was considered by
some to be obscene, to others a masterpiece of fiction. Over the
course of five decades, the "masterpiece" vote has won out, more or
less -- but even two generations later, there's still a lot of
debate.

Fans of the book say the racy nature of the plot is secondary to the
true art of the words. It's written in the voice of a man driven to
murder by his urge to love and control the young girl. Nabokov's
prose alone can seduce readers into seeing the man's otherwise
outrageous and criminal point of view.

Nabokov, who fled persecution in Russia and in Nazi Europe, was a
professor of Russian literature at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
when he wrote _Lolita_, and many of the places described in the book
are easily recognizable by residents today.

The author did tremendous amount of research to get the details of
American life right. "He would do things like travel on the buses
around Ithaca and record phrases, in a little notebook, from young
girls that he heard coming back from school," says Nabokov biographer
Brian Boyd.

The germ of _Lolita_ was created in 1939 -- a short story, in
Russian, about a man who marries a woman to get to her daughter. It
was not well received, but the idea never left him. And a decade
later, Nabokov took up the story again in America. And again, some of
his friends were horrified.

The book was rejected by five American publishers, afraid they'd be
prosecuted on obscenity charges. It was first published in France by
Olympia Press, which put out some serious books and lots of
pornography.

Nabokov didn't know that -- he was just relieved someone agreed to
publish his book. And so _Lolita_ debuted, clad in a plain green
cover, in Paris, on Sept. 15, 1955. It was published in America three
years later and was an immediate hit.

Within a year after the U.S. debut of _Lolita_, Nabokov left
Cornell. He had earned enough money from the book that he could
afford to stop teaching and write full time, and he spent the rest of
his life in Montreux, Switzerland. _Lolita_ has so far sold 50 million
copies, and has been translated into dozens of languages.

RELATED NPR STORIES

* April 25, 2004Possible Source for Nabokov's 'Lolita'
* April 23, 1999Vladmir Nabokov



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