A while ago there was a discussion about the veracity of VN's claim that one reader suggested that his firm might consider publication if VN turned his Lolita into a 12 year old lad. Recently I read Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N'Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (NY: Simon & Schuster 1998) and I was struck by the following (the note is mine):

"[Bert]Schneider [a producer] had a book called Obsession, which Godard had earlier made into Pierrot le Fou*. It was about the relationship between an older man and a teenage girl, a subject of more than routine interest to Bert."

At the eleventh hour the movie was cancelled by Barry Diller [executive].

"Schneider sent Blauner, who always did Bert's dirty work. Blauner walked into Diller's office, remonstrated, said, "How could you do this? Come in now, after a year's work, say, 'Who cares about an older man with a younger woman?' So fine, we'll make it an older man with a younger boy! Now do you understand?" Page 397. The picture was of course never made. Eventually, VN did turn his nymphet, or rather the concept, into a faunlet in Pale Fire.

*Pierrot le Fou, 1965 writ. and dir. Jean-Luc Godard (based on the novel Obsession by Lionel White) cine. Raoul Coutard star. Jean-Paul Belmondo (Pierrot/Ferdinand), Anna Karina (Marianne)

A. Bouazza.