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Fw: 2003 QPB Calendar Of Days Nabokov Reference
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----- Original Message -----
From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (58
lines) ------------------
> At the bottom of the left page of the week of Nabokov's birthday (April
> 21-27) in the 2003 Quality Paperback Bookclub Calendar of Days are photos
of
> 1950s paperback book covers of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK and PNIN. Beneath LITD
> is written, "Pre-Lolita." Beneath PNIN is written, "Post-Lolita." In
between
> them is written "HOW PAPERBACK PUBLISHERS SOLD NABOKOV."
>
> I can't find the Signet cover online.
>
> See the PNIN cover here:
> www.fulmerford.com/waxwing/postcards/pcimages/pnin.jpg
>
>
> On the right page is the following text:
>
> We commend the early paperback publishers for trying to sell Vladimir
> Nabokov in inexpensive editions, because he wasn't the usual fare for that
> audience. (PNIN especially must have made some readers feel like they'd
> wasted their 35¢.) LAUGHTER IN THE DARK was first published in the U.S. in
> 1938, while Nabokov was still living in France. Signet issued this edition
> in March 1950, with a cover illustration that sanitizes the content of the
> novel about a middle-aged man's personal crisis. Margot Peters, pictured
> here as a rather classy woman, is actually a tacky, sexy
eighteen-year-old,
> an occasional prostitute who also works as an usher at a Berlin movie
> theatre. Her mission---to become the next wife of the already enamoured
> Albinus, a wealthy married art critic often mistaken for her father when
> they are out in public. The woman here doesn't seem the sort to apply
> lipstick to her nipples, as Margot does to prepare for a hot date, or the
> type to engage in sex with another man literally under Albinus's nose.
This
> Margot, seen with Albinus at the theatre where they first meet, is
downright
> demure.
>
> The PNIN cover comes from an undated Avon edition and plays up the success
> and notoriety of LOLITA, which finally appeared in the U.S. in 1958, one
> year after PNIN was published. (You might mistake the title of this one as
> "LOLITA PNIN.") Timofey Pnin is a bumbling Assistant Professor of Russian
at
> Waindell College, a stand-in for Cornell where Nabokov taught Russian
> literature until LOLITA allowed him to retire from teaching. But PNIN is
no
> letch. Unlike LOLITA's Humbert Humbert, this professor couldn't be less
> interested in young women: Pnin carries a torch for his former-wife, Dr.
> Liza Wind, who is just a few years younger than he is---fifty-two as the
> novel begins. Pnin's nubile students are invisible; brains are sexy to
him,
> and these three coeds wouldn't be on his radar. (During the course of the
> novel Pnin does think about courting a twenty-nine-year-old graduate
> student, Betty Bliss, although her "servant maid's mind" puts him off.)
The
> cover illustration is accurate on Pnin's appearance: Nabokov describes him
> as a totally bald man with a brownish complexion due to a fondness for
> sunbathing, who is seen "walking a cane in the European manner (up-down,
> up-down)." (When Nabokov's wife, Vera, was trying to get a film version
made
> of the novel she envisioned Peter Sellers or Jacques Tati in the role.)
>
> The irony here is that the book about an older man with a teenage lover
> steers away from its subject matter on the cover, while the one concerned
> with loftier things is packaged as a novel about an older man ogling young
> women. What a difference a best-seller makes.
>
>
>
>
From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (58
lines) ------------------
> At the bottom of the left page of the week of Nabokov's birthday (April
> 21-27) in the 2003 Quality Paperback Bookclub Calendar of Days are photos
of
> 1950s paperback book covers of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK and PNIN. Beneath LITD
> is written, "Pre-Lolita." Beneath PNIN is written, "Post-Lolita." In
between
> them is written "HOW PAPERBACK PUBLISHERS SOLD NABOKOV."
>
> I can't find the Signet cover online.
>
> See the PNIN cover here:
> www.fulmerford.com/waxwing/postcards/pcimages/pnin.jpg
>
>
> On the right page is the following text:
>
> We commend the early paperback publishers for trying to sell Vladimir
> Nabokov in inexpensive editions, because he wasn't the usual fare for that
> audience. (PNIN especially must have made some readers feel like they'd
> wasted their 35¢.) LAUGHTER IN THE DARK was first published in the U.S. in
> 1938, while Nabokov was still living in France. Signet issued this edition
> in March 1950, with a cover illustration that sanitizes the content of the
> novel about a middle-aged man's personal crisis. Margot Peters, pictured
> here as a rather classy woman, is actually a tacky, sexy
eighteen-year-old,
> an occasional prostitute who also works as an usher at a Berlin movie
> theatre. Her mission---to become the next wife of the already enamoured
> Albinus, a wealthy married art critic often mistaken for her father when
> they are out in public. The woman here doesn't seem the sort to apply
> lipstick to her nipples, as Margot does to prepare for a hot date, or the
> type to engage in sex with another man literally under Albinus's nose.
This
> Margot, seen with Albinus at the theatre where they first meet, is
downright
> demure.
>
> The PNIN cover comes from an undated Avon edition and plays up the success
> and notoriety of LOLITA, which finally appeared in the U.S. in 1958, one
> year after PNIN was published. (You might mistake the title of this one as
> "LOLITA PNIN.") Timofey Pnin is a bumbling Assistant Professor of Russian
at
> Waindell College, a stand-in for Cornell where Nabokov taught Russian
> literature until LOLITA allowed him to retire from teaching. But PNIN is
no
> letch. Unlike LOLITA's Humbert Humbert, this professor couldn't be less
> interested in young women: Pnin carries a torch for his former-wife, Dr.
> Liza Wind, who is just a few years younger than he is---fifty-two as the
> novel begins. Pnin's nubile students are invisible; brains are sexy to
him,
> and these three coeds wouldn't be on his radar. (During the course of the
> novel Pnin does think about courting a twenty-nine-year-old graduate
> student, Betty Bliss, although her "servant maid's mind" puts him off.)
The
> cover illustration is accurate on Pnin's appearance: Nabokov describes him
> as a totally bald man with a brownish complexion due to a fondness for
> sunbathing, who is seen "walking a cane in the European manner (up-down,
> up-down)." (When Nabokov's wife, Vera, was trying to get a film version
made
> of the novel she envisioned Peter Sellers or Jacques Tati in the role.)
>
> The irony here is that the book about an older man with a teenage lover
> steers away from its subject matter on the cover, while the one concerned
> with loftier things is packaged as a novel about an older man ogling young
> women. What a difference a best-seller makes.
>
>
>
>