h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I can recommend the Kubrick version if you're a Peter Sellers fan. AMC or Turner Movie Classics or one of those stations ran a "behind the scenes" documentary before they aired the movie last year. According to that, James Mason (Humbert Humbert) hated Peter Sellers (Clare Quilty). He thought Sellers was stealing the movie and being aided and abetted by Kubrick because Kubrick adored Sellers and would let him ad lib whenever and wherever. If that's the case, you can really see it in their performances--Mason positively radiates irritation whenever Sellers appears in a scene.

i've been racking my brains trying to recall a german versioni saw many moons ago, but cant remember what its was renamed as "blue ?" keeps coming into my mind but in the credits lolita and Nabokov where mentioned .dare say its been used by several other countries as well,

Solnushka got it pretty right, though I didn't think that it was that depressing! It's a massive sprawling world, and it feels really alien but at the same time very human... It's a great novel.

Thanks for the welcome

Wee Free Men is a good book too, I love the Pratchett novels.

Does anyone know when the next Orson Scott Card novel is out? [Shadow of the Giant]

Amazon shows that it is available. I won't read Card though. I like Ender's game but hated everything else of his I have read.

Well, nobody seemed to be enjoying themselves much... But it was a well thought out place I agree.

Stand by, all Stephenson lovers: Titania has just embarked on Cryptonomicon. As her native language is actually Swedish, please put yourselves at her disposal for any discussions of his English usage!

I suppose you're right Solnushka

Anyone read the new Jon Courtenay Grimwood? Whats wrong with Scott Card?

Card is a member of the LDS church and as someone familiar with that religion I see a lot of LDS dogma that I just disagree with in his works (mostly his short stories).

I suppose that's just the same as C S Lewis and Narnia, being an allegory/analogy for the Christian concept of heaven. At the same time, his Ender Saga is an enjoyable piece of work, though admittedly I've not read his other works.

I have just finished reading the Silmarillion. Such a wonderful work of the imagination. A bit of a hard slog (but then, so are comparable works of 'real' myth, from the Iliad and Aeneid to Beowulf and the Mabinogion), but well worth it. And now I know who Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron really are. I'd always assumed there was something 'other' about them. Breathtaking. Wonderful.

I recieved my copies of Lolita, Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Wee Free Men today. I think that I have some reading material to last me for a bit.

You might already know this, but when you're done we'd like to hear your verdict, Marv.

My initial impressions of the book Lolita are that I wish that I had Nabokov's turn of phrase. He has a gift for language, that is certain. I only read a few pages lasta night.

I am currently reading "Queenan County : a Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country" by Joe Queenan. It's a hoot.

I am ~10 chapters in to Lolita.

Nabokov's gift of description certainly leaves me wondering about his motives in writing this book.

I am still unsure as to if this book is a novelised biography of a real event, or spun from the aether of his imagination. Anyone care to educate me on that point?

Nabokov uses the language in a way that keeps us enthralled as to what HH is going to do next, while abhoring his attitudes and actions. I have to say that I care about HH, but I can't admire the character. I have been agog to read the next page, while I fear what it contains.

I can see why this story has raised such a fuss. The erudite language of HH as he describes the 18 year old whore encountered in Paris left me wondering how someone of obvious education could be in the state that one generally reserves for hardened criminals of the serial rapist/murderer types. I guess the point (so far) is that one can't judge a man by his charm and cultivation.

Tell me if I am completely missing the point or that I am being fooled by the wonderfull use of wordplay in this book.

Oh, it's fiction, and you're spot on about being sucked into a strange camaraderie with a despicable man. Humbert always has a justification, and yet somehow you see the girl he calls Lolita as she really is, even in spite of the fact that it's Humbert's voice and distorted view. Nabokov is a genius. And not even a native english speaker!

It's completely fiction, Marv. I think it's because Humbert Humbert is so erudite you find yourself, in a strange, sad way, understanding him and even (in the case of the unfortunate Charlotte Haze) rooting him on.

Anybody here? No? Good.

*Finds the Oxford Book of English Verse and curls up in an armchair to try and restore equanimity through sonneteering*

*Chloe brings Ag a cup of camphor tea then adjusts the logs in the fire to brighten the blaze*

Has anyone read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell?

Am 2/3 through and it is really good!