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Fwd: British editions, such as Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" ...
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EDNOTE. It might be interesting to look at this bookand see if LOLITA is
mentioned. Southern's CANDY as somewhat lolita-like as was Queneau's ZAZIE IN
THE METRO.
-----------------------------
----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 23:02:41 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: British editions, such as Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~2346049,00.html[1]
Southern's impact immeasurable
Denver Post, CO - 13 hours ago
... Olympia Press, was releasing quite a few now-classic literary
books too hot for American or British editions, such as VLADIMIR
NABOKOV\'S "Lolita," Henry ...
Article Published: Sunday, August 22, 2004
review
Southern's impact immeasurable
Author made major imprint on 1960s culture
By Steven Rosen
Special to The Denver Post
This year, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Beatles'
arrival in America - the appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show," the
conquering of American radio and transformation of American pop
culture with an irreverent cheekiness, the jolting shock of something
radically new to awaken a society depressed by President Kennedy's
assassination.
As well we should.
But while this may seem hard to believe, the late Terry Southern
made just as big an impact that year. As a co-screenwriter for
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," he was credited with turning
fears of nuclear war, and the beliefs of Cold War hawks, into the
stuff of pitch-black satire. The movie was more than a hit; it was a
watershed in cultural thinking.
[2]
And as the principal author of the beyond-randy novel "Candy," that
year's publishing sensation, he took a wild, sexually explicit spoof
of pornography to the top of the charts. He broke down one very big
barrier separating sexually explicit language from art, and everyone
from Lenny Bruce to Madonna has tried to one-up him since. "Candy,"
with a nod to Voltaire's "Candide," is the story of a young, naive
Wisconsin woman who intimately meets all sorts of lecherous men
including - most famously - a hunchback.
But where did "Candy" come from and how did it get published in the
first place? Its history has been shrouded in haze and mystery,
because the Texas-born Southern and American pal Mason Hoffenberg
actually began writing it while living in Paris in the 1950s.
Southern was slow to work on it, more interested in his "real" novels
like "Flash and Filigree" and "The Magic Christian." So it took years
to finish.
It got published in Paris in 1958, under the pseudonym Maxwell
Kenton by a publisher specializing in "dirty" English-language books
for American tourists. That publisher, Maurice Girodias' Olympia
Press, was releasing quite a few now-classic literary books too hot
for American or British editions, such as Vladimir Nabokov's
"Lolita," Henry Miller's "Tropic" novels and more.
But "Candy" proved too hot even for the French. Charles de Gaulle
did his best to suppress it and Olympia Press. And President
Eisenhower's America just wasn't ready for "Candy."
Because of French copyright laws involving American authors, the
book was unprotected from bootleg editions once an American
publisher, Putnam, felt the time finally was right to release it
under its authors' true names. In a precursor of today's battles over
CD and DVD piracy, spurious editions flooded the marketplace and
deprived the authors of royalties.
More confusing, bootleg editions listed the author as Maxwell
Kenton. People wondered who wrote "Candy." If Kenton was a pseudonym,
was the little-known Hoffenberg one, too?
It was one of the strangest episodes in the history of
best-sellerdom. And it took its toll on both Southern and especially
Hoffenberg, who was battling heroin addiction.
It falls to Nile Southern, Terry's son and a Boulder resident, to
sort it all out in this doggedly researched and engrossing book. Nile
has devoted himself to trying to restore interest in his late father's
life and work, which includes novels, screenplays and journalism. In
this project, he's aided by letters written between Southern and
Hoffenberg, as well as those between both men and their various
publishers. And he also ventures into the sordid details of how a
terrible movie, starring Marlon Brando, Ringo Starr and a Swedish
actress (Ewa Aulin) as the all-American Candy, came to be made from
the novel.
The story behind "Candy" is, in many ways, more timely than "Candy,"
itself. But it's a lot harder to follow. Nile does his best to
navigate the legal morass, although there's only so much he can do
with the business correspondence of publishers and lawyers.
He is far luckier with the entertaining letters that Southern and
Hoffenberg traded each other. They were both free-spirited post-war
hipsters, although Southern also was a serious and dedicated writer.
Neither appears to have been much of a businessman. If both had been
able to make the money they deserved from "Candy," neither might have
had the financial problems that bedeviled them.
At least early on, the letters have the tone of giddy young men
laughing at the world around them. To each other, they often signed
with pseudonyms, sometimes women's names. Their language, often
intentionally coarse, still would make many blush. It also could be
filled with now-nostalgic slang.
Here's Hoffenberg to Southern, circa 1956: "I received your letter,
and understand very well your desire to insinuate yourself and your
chick into this groovy pad during the awkward first week of arrival."
Southern, something of a gleeful prankster, responded this way when
Girodias in 1958 asked him to prepare a fictitious biography for
"Maxwell Kenton." From Geneva, Southern answered in a way that
indicated where "Dr. Strangelove" would later come from:
"'Maxwell Kenton' is the pen-name of an American nuclear-physicist,
formerly prominent in atomic research and development, who, in
February 1957, resigned his post, 'because I found the work becoming
more and more philosophically untenable,' and has since devoted
himself fully to creative-writing. 'Instead of bringing brief horror
into man's life,' he has said, 'I would like to think of bringing
some measure of entertainment and happy diversion to it. There is
certainly a dearth of it in our times.'"
Where did "Candy" come from? Ultimately, Southern's strong sense of
humanism.
_Steven Rosen is a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer._
-------------------------
The Candy Men
The Rollicking Life And Times Of The Notorious Novel "Candy"
By Nile Southern
Arcade, 408 Pages, $27.95
RETURN TO TOP
[3]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~2346049,00.html
[2] http://servedby.advertising.com/click/site=683072/bnum=42131204
[3] http://www.denverpost.com/
----- End forwarded message -----
mentioned. Southern's CANDY as somewhat lolita-like as was Queneau's ZAZIE IN
THE METRO.
-----------------------------
----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 23:02:41 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: British editions, such as Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~2346049,00.html[1]
Southern's impact immeasurable
Denver Post, CO - 13 hours ago
... Olympia Press, was releasing quite a few now-classic literary
books too hot for American or British editions, such as VLADIMIR
NABOKOV\'S "Lolita," Henry ...
Article Published: Sunday, August 22, 2004
review
Southern's impact immeasurable
Author made major imprint on 1960s culture
By Steven Rosen
Special to The Denver Post
This year, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Beatles'
arrival in America - the appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show," the
conquering of American radio and transformation of American pop
culture with an irreverent cheekiness, the jolting shock of something
radically new to awaken a society depressed by President Kennedy's
assassination.
As well we should.
But while this may seem hard to believe, the late Terry Southern
made just as big an impact that year. As a co-screenwriter for
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," he was credited with turning
fears of nuclear war, and the beliefs of Cold War hawks, into the
stuff of pitch-black satire. The movie was more than a hit; it was a
watershed in cultural thinking.
[2]
And as the principal author of the beyond-randy novel "Candy," that
year's publishing sensation, he took a wild, sexually explicit spoof
of pornography to the top of the charts. He broke down one very big
barrier separating sexually explicit language from art, and everyone
from Lenny Bruce to Madonna has tried to one-up him since. "Candy,"
with a nod to Voltaire's "Candide," is the story of a young, naive
Wisconsin woman who intimately meets all sorts of lecherous men
including - most famously - a hunchback.
But where did "Candy" come from and how did it get published in the
first place? Its history has been shrouded in haze and mystery,
because the Texas-born Southern and American pal Mason Hoffenberg
actually began writing it while living in Paris in the 1950s.
Southern was slow to work on it, more interested in his "real" novels
like "Flash and Filigree" and "The Magic Christian." So it took years
to finish.
It got published in Paris in 1958, under the pseudonym Maxwell
Kenton by a publisher specializing in "dirty" English-language books
for American tourists. That publisher, Maurice Girodias' Olympia
Press, was releasing quite a few now-classic literary books too hot
for American or British editions, such as Vladimir Nabokov's
"Lolita," Henry Miller's "Tropic" novels and more.
But "Candy" proved too hot even for the French. Charles de Gaulle
did his best to suppress it and Olympia Press. And President
Eisenhower's America just wasn't ready for "Candy."
Because of French copyright laws involving American authors, the
book was unprotected from bootleg editions once an American
publisher, Putnam, felt the time finally was right to release it
under its authors' true names. In a precursor of today's battles over
CD and DVD piracy, spurious editions flooded the marketplace and
deprived the authors of royalties.
More confusing, bootleg editions listed the author as Maxwell
Kenton. People wondered who wrote "Candy." If Kenton was a pseudonym,
was the little-known Hoffenberg one, too?
It was one of the strangest episodes in the history of
best-sellerdom. And it took its toll on both Southern and especially
Hoffenberg, who was battling heroin addiction.
It falls to Nile Southern, Terry's son and a Boulder resident, to
sort it all out in this doggedly researched and engrossing book. Nile
has devoted himself to trying to restore interest in his late father's
life and work, which includes novels, screenplays and journalism. In
this project, he's aided by letters written between Southern and
Hoffenberg, as well as those between both men and their various
publishers. And he also ventures into the sordid details of how a
terrible movie, starring Marlon Brando, Ringo Starr and a Swedish
actress (Ewa Aulin) as the all-American Candy, came to be made from
the novel.
The story behind "Candy" is, in many ways, more timely than "Candy,"
itself. But it's a lot harder to follow. Nile does his best to
navigate the legal morass, although there's only so much he can do
with the business correspondence of publishers and lawyers.
He is far luckier with the entertaining letters that Southern and
Hoffenberg traded each other. They were both free-spirited post-war
hipsters, although Southern also was a serious and dedicated writer.
Neither appears to have been much of a businessman. If both had been
able to make the money they deserved from "Candy," neither might have
had the financial problems that bedeviled them.
At least early on, the letters have the tone of giddy young men
laughing at the world around them. To each other, they often signed
with pseudonyms, sometimes women's names. Their language, often
intentionally coarse, still would make many blush. It also could be
filled with now-nostalgic slang.
Here's Hoffenberg to Southern, circa 1956: "I received your letter,
and understand very well your desire to insinuate yourself and your
chick into this groovy pad during the awkward first week of arrival."
Southern, something of a gleeful prankster, responded this way when
Girodias in 1958 asked him to prepare a fictitious biography for
"Maxwell Kenton." From Geneva, Southern answered in a way that
indicated where "Dr. Strangelove" would later come from:
"'Maxwell Kenton' is the pen-name of an American nuclear-physicist,
formerly prominent in atomic research and development, who, in
February 1957, resigned his post, 'because I found the work becoming
more and more philosophically untenable,' and has since devoted
himself fully to creative-writing. 'Instead of bringing brief horror
into man's life,' he has said, 'I would like to think of bringing
some measure of entertainment and happy diversion to it. There is
certainly a dearth of it in our times.'"
Where did "Candy" come from? Ultimately, Southern's strong sense of
humanism.
_Steven Rosen is a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer._
-------------------------
The Candy Men
The Rollicking Life And Times Of The Notorious Novel "Candy"
By Nile Southern
Arcade, 408 Pages, $27.95
RETURN TO TOP
[3]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~2346049,00.html
[2] http://servedby.advertising.com/click/site=683072/bnum=42131204
[3] http://www.denverpost.com/
----- End forwarded message -----