Subject
Mailer's "The Time of Her Time" & VN's LO
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Thanks to Rodney Welch <RWelch@scjob.sces.org> for the item
below. I recall that in another of Mailer's books (the one responding to
feminism?), he mentions VN as a Nobel Prize candidate more worthy than
himself.
In his career-capping new anthology "The Time of Our Time,"
Norman Mailer cites "Lolita" in a headnote to his most famous short
story.
The story, referenced by the book's title, is "The Time of Her
Time." This was originally featured in his book "Advertisements for
Myself," and it served as one of the first depictions of anal sex to,
shall we say, penetrate the literary mainstream of 1950s America.
Mailer's prefatory note to the re-anthologized story reads as
follows:
"`The Time of Her Time' was a salacious object in its time.
Secretly, I didn't believe it could be printed. Then my publisher,
Walter Minton of G.P. Putnam's, agreed it could not be included in
`Advertisements for Myself.' Not as it stood.
"`You have to, Walter. Advertisements' is no book without it.'"
"`Don't I know it,' he whined.
"Walter Minton is the only man I ever met who gets stronger as
he whines. Before it was over, he agreed to take the chance without
asking me to remove a word. Then a year or two later he published
`Lolita.' `You know,' he confided once, `I think it was publishing `The
Time of Her Time' and seeing how little trouble came to us which made me
realize you could do `Lolita.'"
"Reader, the story you are about to peruse is the godfather of
`Lolita.'"
below. I recall that in another of Mailer's books (the one responding to
feminism?), he mentions VN as a Nobel Prize candidate more worthy than
himself.
In his career-capping new anthology "The Time of Our Time,"
Norman Mailer cites "Lolita" in a headnote to his most famous short
story.
The story, referenced by the book's title, is "The Time of Her
Time." This was originally featured in his book "Advertisements for
Myself," and it served as one of the first depictions of anal sex to,
shall we say, penetrate the literary mainstream of 1950s America.
Mailer's prefatory note to the re-anthologized story reads as
follows:
"`The Time of Her Time' was a salacious object in its time.
Secretly, I didn't believe it could be printed. Then my publisher,
Walter Minton of G.P. Putnam's, agreed it could not be included in
`Advertisements for Myself.' Not as it stood.
"`You have to, Walter. Advertisements' is no book without it.'"
"`Don't I know it,' he whined.
"Walter Minton is the only man I ever met who gets stronger as
he whines. Before it was over, he agreed to take the chance without
asking me to remove a word. Then a year or two later he published
`Lolita.' `You know,' he confided once, `I think it was publishing `The
Time of Her Time' and seeing how little trouble came to us which made me
realize you could do `Lolita.'"
"Reader, the story you are about to peruse is the godfather of
`Lolita.'"