Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977
Page 29
The act is probably too long but can be easily cut.
I was not sure whether you would want some of the scenes at the end, and so have left them in descriptive quotes.
I hope I have won you over to my vision of the last act, but if not, I am ready to discuss alternate renderings.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: STANLEY KUBRICK
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Can. Rd.
July 21, 1960
Dear Mr. Kubrick,
I am sending you a new beginning of Act Three (new pages 1–40 to replace old pages 1–30) incorporating your suggestions. In the Quilty telephone scene (which follows old p. 30, now p. 40) a few details should be deleted, in keeping with the alterations (such as Humbert's long speech on old p. 35) but that is simple. I would like to go on to the corrections in the second part of the act, and then prune what has to be pruned in earlier scenes.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: STANLEY KUBRICK
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
Los Angeles 49, Calif.
August 11, 1960
Dear Mr. Kubrick,
I am sending you the following new sequences (making in all 37 pp.) for Act Three.
Four consecutive scenes (pursuit, highway, service station, moving car) on new pages 47 A to 50 A (to replace old pages 47–48), after which come the picnic and trailer scenes (old pp. 49–51) which should now become pages 51 A to 53 A.
Nine consecutive scenes (Wace supermarket, street, dress store window, highway, turnout, motor court, hospital room, motel room, hospital vestibule) on new pages 54 A to 74 A (to replace the old pp. 51, 52 etc.) after which come the Grantchester scenes and the Psychiatrist, now to be numbered 75 A to 78 A.
And five consecutive scenes (continuation of Psychiatrist, Detective, class room, Humbert's office, Humbert's room, university post office) to replace the first Clemmburg scenes and to be numbered now 79 A to 91 A, so that the pagination from Examination Hall to End of Act should now become 92 A to 111 A.
Please let me know whether you now consider that the screenplay is completed or if there is any more work on it that you would like me to do.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: JAMES HARRIS AND STANLEY KUBRICK
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Can. Rd.
Los Angeles 49, Calif.
August 19, 1960
Dear Messrs. Harris and Kubrick,
I have been very busy trying out tentative cuts of the screenplay to meet the time requirements. I would like to remind you that you promised to send me shortly your own suggestions in this matter. I would like to receive them from you as soon as possible so that I can conciliate the cuts with your wishes rather than do the whole work twice.
May I also repeat that I feel I could do some important improvements in the dialogue if you were able to show me screentests of the two main protagonists, or, should this still not be possible, to arrange for a ten-minute interview with each or both simultaneously (the latter would be preferable).
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
I am enclosing two pictures that came in today's mail with a letter in Italian, explaining that this young girl is acting (or studying) under Sofia Loren's husband and that she would like to play either the main or a secondary part in LOLITA. As on previous occasions of this kind, I am informing her that I have nothing to do with the casting.
TO: STANLEY KUBRICK
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
Los Angeles 49, Calif.
August 26, i960
Dear Mr. Kubrick,
This is the situation: I think I have brought the script down to a reasonable number of minutes—Prologue, 10; Act One, 40; Act Two, 30; Act Three, 50—and I indicate a few additional omissions or reinstatements here and there, for you to decide. Furthermore: In a number of scenes I have trimmed down speeches and have devised new bridges where scenes are left out. And there have been some other readjustments. Now the whole play is a physical mess and has to be retyped, and I am wondering if you might have a typist familiar with this kind of work. I would have to talk to her to explain my signs on the script.
I need the weekend to finish giving the material a typable form and, once the typing is done, I shall have to go through it (on my own time).
If you would prefer to go with me over the new version of the script before it is retyped, perhaps we could get together on Monday. Please, give me a ring at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: IRVING P. LAZAR
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
Los Angeles 49, Calif.
August 29, 1960
Dear Mr. Lazar,
I was so busy with the screenplay that it was only this Sunday that I could give the new version of the contract the attention it deserves. It had been my impression that, after you had taken my wife to Mr. Blau's office, a satisfactory settlement of matter of publication rights had been reached. A letter I received yesterday from Mr. Davidson makes it quite clear that according to the new version of the contract, the "publishing rights still belong to the Producer and Mr. Nabokov still has a very limited right to publish the screenplay" etc. and "nothing in this agreement prevents Harris-Kubrick from publishing a screenplay based on the novel. On the contrary, publication rights in the screenplay are expressly granted."
To this I cannot agree. Since we have reached a blind alley, I wish to make one last suggestion. Let us say on the subject of publication merely this: "Neither the Producer nor the Author may publish, fictionalize or dramatize any version of the screenplay or of the motion picture based on the novel LOLITA without the written consent of the other party; the only exception to this provision shall be that the Producer may exercise those rights which are given to him by his Agreement with Putnam of ——— 1958." This implies, of course, that "publication" and "dramatization" will have to be deleted in line 14 of Par. (9) on p. 7, and the rest of the contract be made to comply with the meaning of this condition. I am not a lawyer and the wording will have to be approved by Mr. Davidson, but my meaning, I trust, is quite obvious. I would like to assume that in the present light Mr. Blau may see his way to find a plain and unequivocal wording to state this matter.
I wish to make it quite clear that this last concession is as far as I am prepared to go, or shall go at any time. This is a very big concession on my part since I am convinced that publication rights should always be left with the author.1 In compensation for this concession I shall expect Mr. Blau to comply with my lawyer's demands in the two remaining controversial paragraphs, namely the elimination of paragraphs 13 and 29. With regard to the latter one, there is no objection on my part against the application of the laws of the State of California in case of litigation. But I do object, on my lawyer's advice, against the other implications of this paragraph, termed "harsh and unusual" by my lawyer, which would make me subject to the jurisdiction of the California courts no matter where I might be living.
I repeat with all possible emphasis that I shall not go beyond the concession I am making today. We shall be leaving Los Angeles for New York on Sept. 15th, and shall sail for Europe on Oct. 5. It would be preferable to sign this contract before Sept. 15th; otherwise it might still be signed in New York.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: DMITRI NABOKOV
HOLOGRAPH PS to Véra Nabokov letter.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
Los Angeles 49, California
4 Sept. 1960
It is very unhealthy for us to worry like this (we are 120 years old), and we simply cannot understand why you don't understand this.
P.1
TO: STANLEY KUBRICK
CC, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
&
nbsp; Los Angeles 49, Calif.
September 8, i960
Dear Mr. Kubrick,
I am sending you an abridged and corrected copy of my screenplay LOLITA. You will observe that I have not only eliminated several long scenes but have also introduced considerable alterations in the remaining dialogue, changing a number of phrases and spanning with new bridges the gaps between sundered parts.
You have thus a practically new version of the play.
It is up to you, of course, to re-introduce, if you wish, any of the deleted scenes—you have them all in your copy of the old versions. I still feel painful twinges in my torn ligaments (the elimination of the marvelously moodful motel dialogue in Act Two hurt most), but I do think that the play has now gained in unity and neatness.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: DMITRI NABOKOV
TLS, 1 p.
2088 Mandeville Canyon Rd.
Los Angeles 49, Calif.
October 7, 1960
My dear,
Today I sent you a telegram asking you to stop the "Lolita publicity"1 and would like to say the following to you.
This publicity is in very bad taste. It can only harm you in the eyes of those who take music seriously. It has already harmed me: because of it I cannot come to Italy since the reporters would immediately pounce on me there, and I would have to deny categorically everything that you or your agent have been saying.
Here I have resolutely kept my distance from the search for an actress and from all casting matters. This was in the interest of my reputation, and also in that of the producer. I cannot tell you how unpleasant, repugnant even, I find the reports in the Italian press linking you with a presumed search for an actress (who has, incidentally, long since been found by Kubrick and Harris).
No less important is that this unhealthy ruckus can only dilute your young fame.
We are leaving here on Wednesday, 12 October, for New York, where we shall stay at the Hampshire House Hotel, Central Park South. On 2 November we shall sail on the Queen Elizabeth for Cherbourg. From there we shall head for Geneva, and arrive on Tuesday, 8 November. You please come there too.
Your recordings will probably be completed by then. Arrange your schedule so as to arrive on Tuesday or, if that is impossible, at the end of the week, for as many days as you can. Fly if you want.
Mother will soon write you at which hotel we shall stop in Geneva.
I embrace you
Pápa
Hotel rooms must be reserved in Geneva. I would like your reply to this letter, confirming that you will be in Geneva on 8 November (or the tenth if you prefer), to be waiting for me at the New York hotel.2
TO: DMITRI NABOKOV
HOLOGRAPH PS to Véra Nabokov letter.
Nice, France
Jan. 16, 1961
I have interrupted my literary labors to compose this instructive little jingle:
In Italy, for his own good,
A wolf must wear a Riding Hood1
Please, bear this in mind.
Love,
Father
TO: RUST HILLS1
CC, 2 pp.
57, Promenade des Anglais
Nice (A.M.)
February 11, 1961
Dear Mr. Hills,
Many thanks for your letter. I am not annoyed with you, and, in fact, may have some curious material for you very soon. And had you not raised the point yourself, I would not have bothered to bring to your attention what follows.
Helen Lawrenson's article2 in your issue of August 1960 contains some absurd misstatements:
"...said Mrs. Nabokov calmly, '...when we were very poor in Paris I supported him by working as a milliner, and he has always been so grateful that he never gets angry at me.'"
My wife never worked as a milliner, nor in any other shop, and anyway could not have made that trite and silly remark.
Her father was not "the former owner of the largest and most important publishing house in Russia." He was an industrialist, and a jurist by education.
"In the opinion of some of his colleagues" [on the Cornell University faculty] "if the book had not been such a success, he would probably have been fired."
The book, published in 1955 by the Olympia Press of Paris, did not become "a success" until published by Putnam in 1958. There was ample time in which to fire me. Actually, however, during the years my book was banned in France, prohibited in England, and vilified by vulgarians, and up to 1959, when I deliberately and regretfully left Cornell, administration, faculty and students showed me nothing but sympathy, respect and understanding.
Finally, let me quote this incredible passage: "He ... of course, feels that in the good old days of the Czar, a freedom-loving Russian had more freedom than under Lenin, without, however, specifying whether he meant freedom-loving aristocrats or freedom-loving serfs."
Irony, of course, is all right, but when starved by ignorance it chokes on its own tail; for surely any schoolgirl should know that no serfs existed in Russia since 1861, one year before the liberation of slaves in this country, and all lovers of freedom certainly realize that it was Lenin who restored serfdom in Russia.
I do not intend to continue though there are some other less piquant items I might list. None of these blunders was inevitable: all you had to do was send me your article to check the factual points before publishing it. Let me repeat, I would not have written this letter, but you asked for it. I have no objection to your publishing it, and indeed would welcome your correcting those errors as soon as possible. We should not allow future commentators to make fools of themselves by relying on fancy articles.3
With best wishes,
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
CC, 1 p.
57, Promenade des Anglais
Nice (A.M.)
Feb. 25, 1961
Sir,
I am about to start a devastating war against genteel mistranslators. This, however, is an incidental foray. In your issue of February 25–26, 1961, Mr. Thomas Quinn Curtiss quotes a passage from what he calls "the best to my knowledge" translation of "Uncle Vanya" in English (by Rose Caylor). Does his knowledge include some familiarity with the original text? I am asking this because one of the glaring errors in that passage is the corny "We shall see Heaven in all its radiant glory" instead of the literal "We shall see the whole sky bediamonded" or, paraphrased, "ablaze with stars".
Yours truly,
Vladimir Nabokov
1. Not mailed.
TO: THE NEW STATESMAN
CC, 1 p.
57, Promenade des Anglais
Nice (A.M.)
February 25, 1961
Sir,
If, as I suspect, it is a robot that has composed the Associated Television Limited "Russian" advertisement in your issue of February 17, 1961, page 253, he, or it, should be scrapped at once. There are thirteen incredible blunders in those ten lines (my favorite is "Tot ugorov" instead of "Etot dogovor"). Or was it the company's object to provide the Muscovites with an example of British humour?1
Yours truly,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: ROBERT C. CRANE1
CC, 1 p.
57, Promenade des Anglais
Nice (A.M.), France
March 15, 1961
Dear Sir,
I am in receipt of your letter of February 17th.
As a novelist, I have, I think, imagined some of my characters driving through New Jersey. As a lepidopterist, I see maps and visualize regions in terms of the butterflies found in this or that place; and New Jersey is for me the State from which have been described certain exciting butterflies, such as Hessel's Hairstreak (type locality: Lakehurst) or Aaron's Skipper (type locality: Cape May).
Yours truly,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: GEORGE WEIDENFELD
CC, 1 p.
57, Prom, des Anglais, Nice (A.M.)
&n
bsp; March 18, 1961
Dear George,
I am writing to advise you that Vladimir has started proceedings against Olympia Press in the French courts.
Olympia has failed to pay on the two last statements. Nor have they paid within a delay of eight days given them by a "mise en demeure" executed by Vladimir's lawyer (in Paris).
It may be that Olympia is short of money. Anyway, here is Vladimir's chance to break this impossible connection (I could not begin to tell you all the unpleasantness of it, especially since the time M. Girodias began to make pronouncements in favor of pornography; he has also consistently used LOLITA as a kind of shield for his list of publications some of which are absolutely devoid of any artistic value and extremely repulsive).
Vladimir would like to repeat his request that you do not make any payments to The Olympia Press, either now or later, until the suit has been decided by the courts. Olympia may apply pressure to make you pay. Vladimir would be grateful if you could resist it as long as you possibly can. Perhaps depositing any sums that may be due to Olympia in escrow (I think this is the correct English term) might solve the problem. Anyway, if you paid anything now to Olympia, you would jeopardise V.'s chances to obtain a résiliation of his contract with Olympia.