On Lolita edited by Alfred Appel, Jr. - Vintage Books

[jamespage]

Hello. I'm new here. I've just finished reading "Lolita" in the Vintage Books edition edited by Alfred Appel, Jr. (LXXV+457 pages). I never read prefaces or introductions before the book itself, so only yesterday did I read in the preface by Mr. Appel to this 1991 edition that 'This annotated edition, a corrected and chastely revised version of the edition first published in 1970, is designed for the general reader and particularly for use in college literature courses'. I was floored.

I wrote an email to Random House asking for an explanation, and here's the answer I received:

"Thank you for your interest in our publications. We checked the definition of this phrase and have found that the revised edition is free from obscenity. We hope this information helps."

I beg your pardon? "Chastely revised"? In 1991? Just read something else. What's most ludicrous is that Mr. Appel in the notes would have the reader believe that he, like his pal Vladimir Nabokov, is above censorship and a pharisaic notion of morality.

What's odd is that Nabokov somehow collaborated with the editor answering his questions and even receiving him over the years.

When I think that perhaps even just one word that the author chose, whatever it may have been, was kept from me, I'm furious! I will have to read the book again. I simply do not feel like I've really read it.

How would you feel?

Because of the very extensive introduction and notes, I thought this edition was actually used in college courses. Am I to take it that in American universities students are made to read "chastely revised" texts? I had no idea such "revised" editions even existed any more.

Jamespage

[kelby_lake]

I hate it when school editions of books are so coy about everything. Heaven forbid you should let them read an unadulterated copy!

[JBI]

I hope you didn't pay much for it; it's like getting a 300 page Les Miserables. Seriously though, that just makes Random House that much of a shamed publisher - they allowed the publication of an edited book because of censorship or pornography as they see it in the book. As for the idea though, that's like cutting up Walt Whitman, and using him as American religious propaganda.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Honestly, that is pathetic. 'Chastely revised'-it is all so surreal, and completely against what Nabokov stood for, as a writer! It sounds like something straight out of Charlotte Haze's book clubs! 'General reader'? Well, if you want to read a book about chastity, then why read a book about, in which the narrator is a self-confessed paedophile, murderer and all round sociopath? Maybe they should print Nabokov's afterword to 'Lolita', which, funnily enough, ridicules cenorship.

[jamespage]

I hope you didn't pay much for it; it's like getting a 300 page Les Miserables. Seriously though, that just makes Random House that much of a shamed publisher

I paid about 20 euro for it. You see, I *wanted* that edition, because of the extensive notes. Actually, the notes were quite helpful; essential, given the complex nature of the book.

The *paradox* of exhaustive notes glossing an adulterated text...

I don't believe the book was heavily tampered with—it wasn't very "chaste"—but I will have to read it again. Not too bad, I guess.

Jamespage

[Petronius]

The people responsible should be forced to give refunds and remove the edition from existence by eating each and every copy.

On a more serious note, how much faith can you put in the notes from a censored book?

[PeterL]

I hope that you didn't much for that copy. I suggest that you put it in the stack for the next bookburning in your area.

[Logos]

"Annotated" is not in Appels' title?? He's a professor of English Lit at a large North American university so sure his notes are probably great, the version you have being widely acceptable to most because it can, err, "fit" into their programs. I don't know if Lolita is or was studied in colleges or universities before the version you have, but to have a "chastely" revised edition surely goes toward pleasing the majority and toning down the controversy surrounding the book. Would be interesting to get your hands on the 1970 version to compare what was edited, cut, changed etc.

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Kind of off-topic but I was reading about Jules Verne recently, an author who has gotten completely ripped off by his publishers, editors, and various translators. Just check out Arthur C. Clarke's foreword to William Butcher's latest bio about him:

".... one of the most widely distorted, censored, and mistranslated authors of all time. ... excised large chunks of the author's original writing to suit some political and social interests." -- http://www.scribd.com/full/6509353?a...ujn771o7gay0t4


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[Etienne]

"Annotated" is not in Appels' title?? He's a professor of English Lit at a large North American university so sure his notes are probably great, the version you have being widely acceptable to most because it can, err, "fit" into their programs. I don't know if Lolita is or was studied in colleges or universities before the version you have, but to have a "chastely" revised edition surely goes toward pleasing the majority and toning down the controversy surrounding the book. Would be interesting to get your hands on the 1970 version to compare what was edited, cut, changed etc.

Do you mean that some universities could not "fit" Lolita in their programs? Today? What are those universities, just so I dodge them like plague?

Heck, I've read much worse books than Lolita in High School - as part of High School curriculum!

This is very much a matter of culture. Nabokov had found no American publisher willing to publish it, he had to publish it in France. The same had happened for Joyce, for example.

[Logos]

Do you mean that some universities could not "fit" Lolita in their programs? Today? What are those universities, just so I dodge them like plague? ....

I don't know which schools use Lolita currently, according to this article it "hasn't been seriously threatened in the United States for decades". But the fact that someone felt it necessary to "chastely" revise and correct it makes me think there was some demand for a more "palatable" version. I haven't read it though so I don't know to what extent it varies from the original 1955 publication.

[JBI]

Honestly, there is stronger pedophilia content in the majority of books though; take for instance, Homer's Odyssey where Nausica cannot possibly be beyond 12, or almost any work ranging until the end of the 19th century, where the heroines cannot be older than 12-15. Nana herself is 15 when Zola cast her, and she has already born a child, and risen to some fame. The idea of Lolita being so controversial is still puzzling, as me decide to turn blind eyes to everything, from Shakespeare on, yet we cannot accept this book, simply because the narrator is conscious of what he is doing.

The vision in Petrarch for instance, of his Laura cannot be beyond a pre-pubescent girl. Yet he is the model of all poetry, both English and Italian after him for quite a while. How is it that Nabokov is edited, whereas someone like Catlullus is not, I still wonder.

[Etienne]

Honestly, there is stronger pedophilia content in the majority of books though; take for instance, Homer's Odyssey where Nausica cannot possibly be beyond 12, or almost any work ranging until the end of the 19th century, where the heroines cannot be older than 12-15. Nana herself is 15 when Zola cast her, and she has already born a child, and risen to some fame. The idea of Lolita being so controversial is still puzzling, as me decide to turn blind eyes to everything, from Shakespeare on, yet we cannot accept this book, simply because the narrator is conscious of what he is doing.

The vision in Petrarch for instance, of his Laura cannot be beyond a pre-pubescent girl. Yet he is the model of all poetry, both English and Italian after him for quite a while. How is it that Nabokov is edited, whereas someone like Catlullus is not, I still wonder.

Because those who fight for such censorship have not read/have not understood those works is my bet.

[Jozanny]

Honestly, there is stronger pedophilia content in the majority of books though; take for instance, Homer's Odyssey where Nausica cannot possibly be beyond 12, or almost any work ranging until the end of the 19th century, where the heroines cannot be older than 12-15. Nana herself is 15 when Zola cast her, and she has already born a child, and risen to some fame. The idea of Lolita being so controversial is still puzzling, as me decide to turn blind eyes to everything, from Shakespeare on, yet we cannot accept this book, simply because the narrator is conscious of what he is doing.

The vision in Petrarch for instance, of his Laura cannot be beyond a pre-pubescent girl. Yet he is the model of all poetry, both English and Italian after him for quite a while. How is it that Nabokov is edited, whereas someone like Catlullus is not, I still wonder.

It isn't just that he is conscious JBI--it is that he's sticking it to his readers and getting away with it, much like Flaubert does with Bovary; it is neither the pedophile of the former nor the raging sex in the latter--it is the mocking irony that gives nothing back. It is hard for mere common social animals to take, whatever the redeeming value of the genius shoving it down our throats.

[Etienne]

It isn't just that he is conscious JBI--it is that he's sticking it to his readers and getting away with it, much like Flaubert does with Bovary; it is neither the pedophile of the former nor the raging sex in the latter--it is the mocking irony that gives nothing back. It is hard for mere common social animals to take, whatever the redeeming value of the genius shoving it down our throats.

So it is just about the bad guy who is not punished at the end of the story? That does not make much more sense to me...

[Bitterfly]

Honestly, there is stronger pedophilia content in the majority of books though; take for instance, Homer's Odyssey where Nausica cannot possibly be beyond 12, or almost any work ranging until the end of the 19th century, where the heroines cannot be older than 12-15. Nana herself is 15 when Zola cast her, and she has already born a child, and risen to some fame. The idea of Lolita being so controversial is still puzzling, as me decide to turn blind eyes to everything, from Shakespeare on, yet we cannot accept this book, simply because the narrator is conscious of what he is doing.

The vision in Petrarch for instance, of his Laura cannot be beyond a pre-pubescent girl. Yet he is the model of all poetry, both English and Italian after him for quite a while. How is it that Nabokov is edited, whereas someone like Catlullus is not, I still wonder.

Because it's much easier to accept such things in "old" books, when you can tell yourself that it's because the authors lived a long time ago that they thought that way. They're excusable because they can be seen as "different", "foreign". You can always say, for Petrarch, "oh yes, it's quite normal, twelve year old girls were married off at that age".

Nabokov was lashed at because he was not politically correct in a period when political incorrectness, at least in such matters, was not acceptable (and in fact, is still not acceptable, if his work is still being censured).