Making Light :: Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time :: comments

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time

Robert writes: I'm a big fan of Vladimir Nabokov's fiction. Many of you are also aware that I sometimes translate...

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #1 from Dorothy Rothschild

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 09:09:56 -0500

Hey, anything to get the kids reading, right?

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Posted January 17, 2003 9:09 AM by Dorothy Rothschild

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #2 from John M. Ford

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:06:28 -0500

I look forward and sidewise to Franco Saudelli's adaptation of NORTHANGER ABBEY, with additional dialogue by Alasdair Gray, and a special appearance by the Rawhide Kid. Edited by, well, I'm here all day.

J. "the other Milo" F.

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Posted January 17, 2003 2:06 PM by John M. Ford

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #3 from Trent Walters

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:10:44 -0500

I wonder if kiddie porn readers will be disappointed by the lack of sex scenes. Will there be a literary revolution in the kingdom of pornography?

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Posted January 17, 2003 5:10 PM by Trent Walters

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #4 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:48:16 -0500

Trent, any reader who's into kiddy porn already knows about Nabokov's Lolita. Also, there are plenty of sex scenes in Manara's book. As Robert observed, the only thing it shares with Nabokov's novel is its title.

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Posted January 17, 2003 5:48 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #5 from Trent Walters

Sat, 18 Jan 2003 02:10:01 -0500

I really don't remember any sex scenes, let alone something explicit enough to entice kiddie porn readers. I regularly forget sex scenes in films as well. This must tell me something, but what, I have no clue.

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Posted January 18, 2003 2:10 AM by Trent Walters

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #6 from Trent Walters

Sat, 18 Jan 2003 03:16:39 -0500

I think I compounded my mistake. Instead of a publisher accidentally promoting literature as pornography, a bookseller accidentally promoted pornography as literature. (Open mouth, insert foot.)

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Posted January 18, 2003 3:16 AM by Trent Walters

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #7 from Robert L

Sun, 19 Jan 2003 01:31:14 -0500

Just to clear up any confusion: Manara's comic, which I trannslated, has a lot of sex in it, but is not too graphic. Nabokov's novel, while very erotic in a psychological way, has little overt sex described in it. It's mostly done with suggestion. VN scorned what he called "the copulating cliche9s"--and in fact one can read the novel as a clash between old-world eroticism and modern pornography (Clare Quilty, the villain [such as he is, to Humbert, the "hero"] makes porno films and wants to star Lolita in them).
Actually, I see no reason why the right artist couldn't make a perfectly good graphic novel out of Lolita (or better yet, Invitation to a Beheading, as Gordon Van Gelder suggeested to me). that is, if they could get permsission from VN's estate, which is unlikely--although, then again, he did sell the film rights twice, for 2 very different movies that each had a lot to offer. If Daniel Clowes, Jaime Hernadez, or Adrian Tomine will draw it, I'll script...
/the same ublisher, in fact, put out the English edition of the graphic-novel version of A la recherche du temps perdu. Now if they can make a comic of ~that~...

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Posted January 19, 2003 1:31 AM by Robert L

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #8 from John M. Ford

Sun, 19 Jan 2003 02:08:37 -0500

I'll script PALE FIRE if Dave McKean will draw it. Or, possibly even better, a hyperlinked Web version by Scott McCloud. (Though it might be the first graphic wossname in history to be accomnpanied by a recommended dosage of Cylert.)

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Posted January 19, 2003 2:08 AM by John M. Ford

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #9 from Steve Taylor

Sun, 19 Jan 2003 23:33:02 -0500

I'm all for comics, Nabokov, and erotica, but Milo Manara has always made my flesh creep. I wouldn't let him mind mind a houseplant.

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Posted January 19, 2003 11:33 PM by Steve Taylor

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #10 from Alan Bostick

Mon, 20 Jan 2003 12:05:10 -0500

Pale Fire oughtn't be a graphic novel; by rights it should be a computer game like unto Myst. You win if you can find the Crown Jewels of Zembla.

Hmmm, a puzzle game like Myst or a first-person shooter like Resident Evil, from Kinbote's point of view?

In any event, Mike should script it, with perhaps Greg Costikyan doing the game design.

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Posted January 20, 2003 12:05 PM by Alan Bostick

Nabokov and Legault: Together again for the first time -- comment #11 from Robert L

Tue, 21 Jan 2003 03:13:38 -0500

I'm not such a big fan of Manara either, or of some of the other eroitc comics they assign me (though I do like Noe9; he's kind of like an X-rated Geore Woodbridge)--but, hey, they pay me to translate 'em, so...
Pale Fire is indeed hypertext before there was hypertext.

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Posted January 21, 2003 3:13 AM by Robert L