Film & Novel Plots :: The First Great Love Journey. Mira Nair's Kama Sutra + Lolita

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Film & Novel Plots :: The First Great Love Journey. Mira Nair's Kama Sutra + A Star is Born + Funny Girl + Young Bess + The King and I + Lolita

Maya walks away on her own, Jai's widow, with wisdom and strength gained from pain, and a heart 'as open as the sky'.

Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love is a 1996 American drama film directed by Mira Nair. The film takes its title from the ancient Indian text, the Kama Sutra, but this only serves as a common link between the characters. During filming in India, the name of the project was not revealed to government officials who would have denied the petition to film in India had it been called "Kama Sutra." Instead, it was called "Maya & Tara." Since government officials made many periodic visits to the set to ensure proper Indian film etiquette, the cast had to improvise fake scenes which avoided the nudity and sexuality central to the story. Upon completion, authorities screened the film and it was subsequently banned in India because of the erotic scenes that contained heterosexual as well as homosexual elements (the lesbianism was depicted in an explicit scene, whereas the male homosexuality was more implied).

Set in 16th century India, this timeless movie depicts the story of two girls, Maya and Tara, who were raised together even though they come from different social classes. Tara (Sarita Choudhury) is an upper-caste princess while Maya (Indira Varma) is her beautiful servant. The two girls are best friends and have lived the same life, until they get old enough to start preparing for marriage. At this point, Tara is treated as a future princess being readied to marry Prince Raj Singh (Naveen Andrews) but Maya is forced into the role of her servant and inferior. This culminates in an argument where Tara reminds Maya of her lowly position in life. Resentful, Maya exacts her revenge by sleeping with Prince Raj on the wedding night, who is delighted with this opportunity. Yet unbeknown to Raj and Maya, Tara's brother Prince Bikram or Biki, hides and watches the two of them engaged in intercourse, and becomes crushed that his childhood infatuation has given herself to his brother-in-law.

The next morning, as Tara is leaving her home to be with her husband, Maya tells Tara that just as Maya wore the princess's used clothes all her life, now Tara will have something Maya used for the rest of her life. Tara's brother Biki, having seen Maya sleep with Raj and in order to save her honor, sends a proposal of marriage for Maya. When she refuses him, he brands her as a whore, and she is forced to leave her home.

Maya wanders on her own, making a stop to pray and bathe. There, she meets a young stone sculptor named Jai Kumar (Ramon Tikaram), who had spotted her at Tara's wedding. Jai, realizing she has no where to stay, takes her to the property of an older woman named Rasa Devi (Rekha) who is a teacher of the Kama Sutra, the ancient art of seduction that takes into account dancing, singing, and costumes, as well as the art of making love. While staying with Rasa, Maya begins a romantic relationship with Jai Kumar that is abruptly halted when he realizes he might not be able to work properly with Maya consuming his thoughts. Jai rejects Maya, and she seeks comfort with Rasa Devi, making the decision to learn the courtesan's art. In the meantime, Raj, now the king, recognizes the visage in one of Jai Kumar's sculptures as Maya's. He dispatches his attendants to find her and succeeds. Maya is then delivered to the King as his new concubine. Soon after, Raj and Jai Kumar have a friendly wrestling competition, in which Jai wins but apologizes for throwing Raj, and thereby wins the king's favor. The King insists that Jai have an audience with his new infatuation, and thus, Jai Kumar learns of Maya's status as favored concubine.

In the meantime, the threat of an invading Shah is inches ever closer. As King Raj descends deeper into debauchery and opium delirium, he becomes irresponsible with his kingdom and official duties. The King is advised by his prime minister that the Shah has created an alliance with Queen Tara's brother Biki. Unfortunately the king digs his hole deeper by insulting Biki while visiting King Raj's palace (by ridiculing him sexually and for his hunchback). In retaliation, Biki writes a letter to the Shah, sealing his allegiance and to rid the kingdom of Raj, who has insulted his own wife and taxes the poor to feed his addiction to pleasure.

Jai Kumar and Maya resuscitate their love and "marry" each other by exchanging simple vows ("You marry me, I marry you") and the two eventually begin meeting in secret, as tensions between Jai Kumar and King Raj grow. After Maya grows cold towards Raj, the two men have another wrestling match, with the addition of blades. Kumar wounds the King, and has to be carried away by a guard. Afterwards, Raj catches the two lovers together, and sentences Kumar to imprisonment and death.

Maya realizes that she must make difficult choices as she finds herself in the position to either accept her role as concubine to King Raj or to help the people she loves who are all headed down towards their own paths of destruction, all because of her presence in their lives. After finding Tara in the midst of a suicide attempt, Maya tells her that she loves Jai Kumar and the two reconcile. Maya then teaches Tara how to seduce the King, while Tara promises to help Maya escape to visit Jai. However, when Tara does go to her husband (at this point virtually bedridden) she at first uses what Maya taught her to arouse him, then tells him that he is common to many other women and she doesn't love him enough to hate him, before leaving.

As the execution approaches, Maya leaves the castle and visits Jai one last time. She cuts her hair, symbolizing the end of their marriage and the start of her widowhood. Maya then tries her best to make the King free Jai by promising him everything. At first he is inclined to agree, but with the knowledge that he can't have her heart, he rejects her plea. Just before the execution, a box arrives from the Shah with the severed head of the grand vizier in it, and we see the King and his kingdom both about to fall apart. Jai Kumar is killed while Maya watches from the crowd, and the King and Queen from above. She wipes the Kunkumam off her forehead and leaves, just as the Shah's army arrives. Biki, riding with the army, sees Maya walking out and calls to her, but either she doesn't hear or doesn't look up. Maya walks away on her own, Jai's widow, with wisdom and strength gained from pain, and a heart 'as open as the sky'.

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A Star is Born 

A Star Is Born is a 1976 American rock music musical film telling the story of a young woman, played by Barbra Streisand who enters show business, and meets and falls in love with an established male star, played by Kris Kristofferson, only to find her career ascending while his goes into decline. 

It is a remake of two earlier versions – the 1937 version was a drama starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and the 1954 version was a musical film starring Judy Garland and James Mason. This version was the highest-grossing of the three films.

Esther Hoffman, an aspiring singer/songwriter, meets John Norman Howard, a famous, successful and self-destructive singer/songwriter, whom, after a series of coincidental meetings, she finally starts dating. Believing in her talent, John gives her a helping hand and her career begins to eclipse his.

Writer and director Frank Pierson, in his New West magazine article "My Battles With Barbra and Jon" summarized it this way:

"An actress is a little more than a woman, an actor a little less than a man (Oscar Wilde) ... The woman in our story is ambitious to become a star, but it is not necessary: it can make her happier and richer, but she could give it all away and not be a better or worse person. With stardom she is only a little more than a woman. For the man, his career is his defense against a self-destructive part of himself that has led him into outrageous bursts of drunkenness, drugs, love affairs, fights and adventures that have made him a legend.

His career is also what gives him his sense of who he is. Without it, he is lost and confused; his demons eat him alive. That's why he is a little less than a man. And it is not that her success galls him, or that she wins over him; the tragedy is that all her love is not enough to keep alive a man who has lost what he measures his manhood with; his career."

And so the conclusion is measured by the theme. He takes his life in the mistaken belief that he will then not drag her down with him.

The 1954 Musical

A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay written by Moss Hart was an adaptation of the original 1937 film, which was based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The film ranked #43 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Passions list in 2002 and #7 on its list of best musicals in 2006. The song "The Man That Got Away" was ranked #11 on AFI's list of the 100 top tunes in films.

Star Judy Garland had not made a movie since she had mutually negotiated the release from her MGM contract soon after filming began on Royal Wedding in 1950, and the film was promoted heavily as her comeback. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and NBC, which was televising the ceremony, sent a film crew to the hospital room where she was recuperating after giving birth to her son Joey in order to carry her acceptance speech live if she won, but she lost to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl.

Norman Maine is a former matinee idol whose career is in the early stages of decline. When he arrives intoxicated at a function at the Shrine Auditorium, his studio's publicist attempts to keep him away from reporters, and after an angry exchange, Norman rushes away and bursts onto a stage where an orchestra is performing. Singer Esther Blodgett takes him by the hand and pretends he is part of the act, turning an embarrassing and potentially destructive moment into an opportunity for the audience to greet Norman with applause.

Realizing Esther has saved him from public humiliation, Norman thanks her and draws a heart on the wall with her lipstick, then invites her to dinner. He later watches her perform after-hours in a downtown club and is impressed by her talent. He urges her to follow her dream, and convinces her to try to break into movies. She agrees to meet him the following day, but Norman is called away early in the morning to begin filming on location. He attempts to get a message to Esther but cannot remember her address, and when she doesn't hear from him, she suspects he was only flirting with her. Having quit her band, she takes jobs as a carhop and TV commercial singer to make ends meet.

Time passes and Norman hears Esther singing on a television commercial. Recognizing her voice, he tracks her down and convinces her he believes in her talent. Studio head Oliver Niles believes the girl is just a passing fancy for the actor, but he casts her in a small role in a film. The studio changes her name to Vicki Lester, and after Norman finally gets Oliver Niles to hear her sing, she is cast in an important musical film that is a huge success, making her a star. Her relationship with Norman Maine flourishes, and they wed.

As Vicki's career continues to grow, Norman finds himself unemployed. When she is presented with an Oscar, he joins her onstage and, while making a drunken speech, gestures wildly and accidentally strikes her in the face. He realizes how severe his alcoholism has become and enters a sanitarium where he gradually recovers with Vicki's support.

Following his release, Norman is at the racetrack, where he meets studio publicist Matt Libby, who taunts Norman and accuses him of living on Vicki's earnings. The resulting fight prompts the actor to go on a drinking binge and eventually he is arrested. Vicki bails him out and brings him home, where they are joined by Oliver Niles. Norman goes to bed but overhears his wife telling the studio head she will give up her career to take care of him. He also overhears Oliver telling Vicki that Norman has ruined his own career with his drinking. After weeping over what he has done to himself and to Vicki, in the next scene Norman leaves his bed, tells Vicki he is going to go for a swim, and then walks into the ocean and drowns himself.

Despondent, Vicki becomes a recluse and refuses to see anyone. Finally, her old friend Danny tells her she is wasting the career Norman died trying to save, and she agrees to honor a commitment to appear at a charity function. At the Shrine Auditorium, she notices the heart Norman drew on the wall on the night they met and for a moment begins to lose her composure. When Vicki arrives on stage, the emcee tells her the event is being broadcast worldwide and asks her to say a few words to her fans. She says, "Hello everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." The crowd erupts into a standing ovation.

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The King and I

The King and I is a 1956 musical film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical The King and I, based in turn on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The plot comes from the story written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' story was autobiographical, although a recent biographer has uncovered substantial inaccuracies and fabrications. An animated adaptation/remake was made in 1999.

Strong-willed, widowed schoolteacher Anna Leonowens arrives in Bangkok from Wales with her young son Louis after being summoned to tutor the many children of King Mongkut. The two are introduced to the Kralahome, King Mongkut's confidante and Siam's Prime Minister. His severe countenance makes Louis apprehensive, but Anna refuses to be intimidated and convinces him to disguise his fear ("I Whistle a Happy Tune"). The Kralahome explains he has come to escort them to the Royal Palace where they will live - a violation of Anna's contract, which calls for them to live in a separate house outside the walls of the Palace. Despite her threat to return to Singapore, Anna reluctantly disembarks with Louis and the Kralahome.

Once inside the Royal Palace, Anna demands to see King Mongkut and is allowed by the Kralahome to enter the Throne Room. A pleased Mongkut ignores her objections as he introduces her to his numerous wives - who include head wife Lady Thiang and a graceful young girl from Burma named Tuptim. King Mongkut later presents the fifteen children she will tutor, aside from the other sixty-seven - among them his eldest son and heir Prince Chulalongkorn ("March of the Royal Siamese Children"). Anna eventually agrees to stay and tutor the King's children, prompting formality to break down. Later that night, Lady Thiang and the other wives assist Anna in unpacking while also interested in how the British dress and act. When an old photograph of her late husband Tom is discovered, the other wives start to deride the unhappy Tuptim because she is in love with another man named Lun Tha, the same man who brought her to Siam. This causes Anna to reminisce about her life with Tom and give her blessing to other young girls who are like she once was ("Hello Young Lovers").

Anna refuses to give up on the house and teaches the children about the virtues of home life to King Mongkut's irritation. The King contemplates how he craves truth and wonders why the world has become so complicated with different cultures saying different things. ("A Puzzlement"). Meanwhile, Anna shows the children a modern map - saying that England is even smaller than Siam. Anna starts to form a relationship with the children as getting to know people is her favorite thing to teach ("Getting to Know You"). The lesson, however, creates disorder when the children refuse to believe in snow. The King eventually enters a chaotic schoolroom, ordering his pupils to believe Anna. Upon noticing Tuptim has a copy of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, he engages in a slightly heated conversation with Anna about slavery - an institution embraced by all his people.

That night, Anna is summoned to the King's private chambers where he says that after reading the Bible, he believes that the world was not created in six days, but after many centuries. The King disregards her explanation and orders her to take a letter to President Abraham Lincoln, in which he will send male elephants to America to help with the Civil War. He then forces her to sit on the floor due to an ancient custom that no one's head should be higher than his. She then continues to write the letter, but is left to finish the letter herself when she tries to explain that the elephants will not last long if only male elephants are sent. Anna goes outside, only to come across Lun Tha and learn that he has been meeting Tuptim in secret. He asks her to arrange a rendezvous and she refuses out of fear but eventually relents after remembering her past with her Tom. The lovers meet under the cover of darkness and Lun Tha promises he will one day return to Siam and they will escape together ("We Kiss In A Shadow").

The next day, King Mongkut becomes troubled by reports of English imperialism and bursts into the schoolroom after hearing Anna's pupils persist in singing "Home Sweet Home." Anna stands her ground, threatening to leave Siam despite pleas from the children. King Mongkut asserts that Anna is his servant only to see her repudiate the term and leave the room. King Mongkut then dismisses school and contemplates his next action. Lady Thiang visits Anna later that night and explains Mongkut is apprehensive over rumors that the British regard him as a barbaric leader, intending to turn Siam into a protectorate. Anna is shocked by the accusations but is reluctant to give him advice after their argument. Lady Thiang convinces her that the King is deserving of support and convinces Anna to go to the King ("Something Wonderful"). Anna learns the King is also anxious for reconciliation and learns that the British are sending an envoy to evaluate the situation in Bangkok. Upon learning that the envoy consists of Ambassador John Hay and her old lover Sir Edward Ramsay, Anna persuades the King to receive them in European style by hosting a banquet with European food and music - after which it is announced that the envoy is arriving in one week. The King assembles his family for a Buddhist prayer for the success of the venture and promises to give Anna a house of her own.

On the night of the banquet, Anna has Lady Thiang and the other wives wear lavish European-style gowns only to discover in horror they are not wearing undergarments. She entreats the women to keep their backs to the wall as Ambassador Hay enters the room. But the ladies flee the room in horror at the sight of the Ambassador's monocle, coming to the conclusion that he has an evil eye and the head of a goat on the matter of his beard. Ambassador Hay is diplomatic about the incident and follows the King into the Dining Room as Edward reminisces with Anna about old times in an attempt to bring her back to British society. The King however walks in on them dancing and irritably reminds them that dancing is for after dinner. After impressing the guests with his intellectual observations, the King presents Tuptim's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin - which is presented as a traditional Siamese ballet. However, the King and the Kralahome are not impressed as the play involves the issue of slavery and shows the slaveholding King dead after drowning in the river. By the time the audience calls for the play's author, Tuptim has left the room to meet with Lun Tha.

After the guests have departed, Anna talks with the King and is presented with one of his rings in appreciation of her efforts. He then explains he is not pleased with Tuptim and reveals she is missing. Anna however parries his inquiry by explaining she is unhappy because she is just another woman in his eyes. The King retorts that men are entitled to a plentitude of wives although women must remain faithful, explaining in a poem that men are "like honeybees" gathering honey from "blossoms." Anna explains the reality of one man loving only one woman and recalls her first dance before teaching the King how to dance the polka ("Shall We Dance"). But the moment is shattered when the Kralahome bursts into the room with news that Tuptim has been captured. For her dishonor, the King prepares to whip her despite Anna's plea that he is a barbarian with no heart. The King then crumples and leaves the room as Anna tells the Kralahome she will leave Siam on the next boat to Singapore and returns the ring. Tuptim meanwhile is led away in tears when she learns that Lun Tha is dead, his body discovered floating in the river.

On the night of her departure, Anna is prepared to leave the Royal Palace with Louis when Lady Thiang says that the King is dying. He refused to eat or sleep, isolating himself from everyone since the night of the banquet. Lady Thiang gives Anna a letter from the King that states his deep gratitude and respect for her. This prompts her to go to his bedside in tears moments before their ship departs for Singapore. The King gives Anna his ring, insisting that she wear it as she has always spoken the truth to him, persuading her and Louis to stay. King Mongkut then passes his title to Prince Chulalongkorn, who then issues a proclamation that brings an end to slavery and state that all subjects will no longer bow down to him. Satisfied that he is leaving his kingdom in capable hands, the King quietly dies with only Anna and the Kralahome noticing.

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Young Bess 

Young Bess is a 1953 Technicolor biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about the early life of Elizabeth I, from her turbulent childhood to the eve of her accession to the throne of England. The film starred Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour, with Charles Laughton as Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, a part he had played twenty years before in The Private Life of Henry VIII. The film was directed by George Sidney and produced by Sidney Franklin, from a screenplay by Jan Lustig and Arthur Wimperis based on the novel by Margaret Irwin (1944).

Following the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn (Elaine Stewart), for infidelity, Elizabeth (Jean Simmons) is exiled to Hatfield House and declared illegitimate (thereby losing her place in line for the throne) by her father, King Henry VIII (Charles Laughton). She is accompanied by her loyal servants, Mr. Parry (Cecil Kellaway) and her governess Mrs. Ashley (Kay Walsh). Over the years, her position rises and falls on the whim of her father.

The child is periodically summoned back to London to become acquainted with Henry's latest spouse. When Henry marries his last wife, Catherine Parr (Deborah Kerr), the now-teenage Elizabeth finally rebels against her latest summons. However, the suave, handsome Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour (Stewart Granger) persuades her to change her mind, and Elizabeth and Catherine become good friends. Meanwhile, Henry is impressed and amused by the resolute defiance of his daughter (once again declared legitimate).

When Henry dies, Thomas's scheming brother Ned (Guy Rolfe) takes over as Lord Protector and guardian of King Edward VI (Rex Thompson) during his minority, overriding Henry's wish that Thomas raise the boy. Ned and Thomas do not like each other, and Ned's fear of his brother's ambition grows with each of Thomas's naval triumphs.

By now, Elizabeth realizes she is in love with Thomas. She refuses to believe Mrs. Ashley's warning that he loves someone else until she sees Thomas and Catherine embrace in secret. Ned had blocked Thomas from marrying into the royal family, but Elizabeth graciously persuades her brother to issue a royal decree sanctioning their marriage. As they live in the same household, Thomas grows too close to Elizabeth without even knowing it, until one day, Elizabeth kisses him and declares her love for him. She then wisely moves back to Hatfield.

Soon after, however, Catherine sickens and dies. Thomas comes to see Elizabeth. Ned has him arrested and charged with treason. He also accuses Elizabeth of plotting with Thomas to overthrow her brother. She goes to see Edward, but is too late to save Thomas from execution.

The film then shifts forward to 1558. Having survived the perils of her early life, and with Edward deceased and her elder sister Mary dying, Elizabeth is about to become Queen of England.

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Funny Girl 

Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nick Arnstein. Its original title was My Man.

The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice's son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand. The production was nominated for eight Tony Awards but, facing tough competition from Hello, Dolly!, it failed to win in any categories.

The musical is set in and around New York City just prior to and following World War I. Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice, awaiting the return of her husband, Nick Arnstein, from prison, reflects on their life together, and their story is told as a flashback.

Act I

Fanny is a stage-struck teen who gets her first job in vaudeville. Her mother and her friend Mrs. Strakosh try to dissuade her from show-business because Fanny is not the typical beauty ("If a Girl Isn't Pretty"). But Fanny perseveres ("I'm the Greatest Star") and is helped and encouraged by Eddie Ryan, a dancer she meets in the vaudeville shows. Once Fanny's career takes off, Eddie and Mrs. Brice lament that once she's on Broadway she'll forget about them ("Who Taught Her Everything?"). Fanny performs a supposedly romantic number in the Follies, but she turns it into a classic comic routine, ending the number as a pregnant bride ("His Love Makes Me Beautiful").

She meets the sophisticated and handsome Nick Arnstein, who accompanies Fanny to her mother's opening night party on "Henry Street". Fanny is clearly falling in love with Nick, while acknowledging their complex vulnerabilities ("People"). They meet in Baltimore and have a private dinner at a swanky restaurant and declare their feelings ("You Are Woman"). Fanny is determined to marry Nick regardless of his gambling past ("Don't Rain on My Parade").

Act II

They do marry and move to a mansion on Long Island ("Sadie, Sadie"). In the meantime, Mrs. Strakosh and Eddie propose to Mrs. Brice that she should find a man to marry, now that her daughter is supporting her ("Find Yourself a Man.") Fanny has become a major star with Ziegfeld and the Follies ("Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat"). Nick asks Ziegfeld to invest in a gambling casino, but although Ziegfeld passes, Fanny insists on investing. When the venture fails and they lose their money, Fanny tries to make light of it, which propels Nick to get involved in a shady bond deal, resulting in his arrest for embezzlement. Fanny feels helpless but stronger than ever in her love for him ("The Music That Makes Me Dance").

In the present, Fanny is waiting for Nick to arrive and has time to reflect on her situation. Nick arrives, newly released from prison, and he and Fanny decide to separate. Fanny is heartbroken, but resolves to pick up her life again ("Don't Rain on My Parade, Reprise").

The Film

Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title. It is loosely based on the life and career of Broadway and film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.

The film was produced by Brice's son-in-law, Ray Stark. The score is by Bob Merrill (lyrics) and Jule Styne (music).

Barbra Streisand, reprising her Broadway role, shared the Academy Award for Best Actress with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.

In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film #16 on its list commemorating AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals. Previously it had ranked the film #41 in its 2002 list of 100 Years ... 100 Passions, the songs "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" at #13 and #46, respectively, in its 2004 list of 100 Years ... 100 Songs, and the line "Hello, gorgeous" at #81 in its 2005 list of 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes.

Set in and around New York City just prior to and following World War I, the story opens with Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice awaiting the return of husband Nicky Arnstein from prison, and then moves into an extended flashback focusing on their meeting and marriage.

Fanny is first seen as a stage-struck teenager who gets her first job in vaudeville and meets the suave Arnstein following her debut performance. They continue to meet occasionally over the years, becoming more romantically involved as Fanny's career flourishes and she becomes a star. Arnstein eventually seduces Fanny, who decides to abandon the Follies to be with Nicky.

After winning a fortune playing poker, Nicky agrees to marry Fanny. They move into an expensive house and have a daughter, and Fanny eventually returns to Ziegfeld and the Follies. Meanwhile, Nicky's various business ventures fail, forcing them to move into an apartment. Refusing financial support from his wife, he becomes involved in a bonds scam and is imprisoned for embezzlement for eighteen months.

Following Nick's release from prison, he and Fanny briefly reunite long enough to agree to separate.

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Lolita 

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York. It was later translated by its Russian-native author into Russian. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged literature professor and hebephile Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores.

The book is also notable for its writing style. The narrative is highly subjective as Humbert draws on his fragmented memories, employing a sophisticated prose style, while attempting to gain the reader's sympathy through his sincerity and melancholy, although near the end of the story Humbert refers to himself as a "maniac" who "deprived" Dolores "of her childhood", and he shortly thereafter states "the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest" in which they were involved.

After its publication, Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th century literature. The name "Lolita" has entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets, and an acclaimed but failed Broadway musical.

Lolita is included on Time's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It is fourth on the Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century. It was also included as one of The 100 Best Books of All Time.

The novel's fictional "Foreword" states that Humbert Humbert dies of coronary thrombosis upon finishing his manuscript, the events of the novel. It also states that Mrs. Richard Schiller [Lolita] died giving birth to a stillborn girl on Christmas Day, 1952, at the age of 17.

Humbert Humbert, a literary scholar, has harboured a long-time obsession with young girls, or "nymphets". He suggests that this was caused by the premature death of a childhood sweetheart, Annabel Leigh. After an unsuccessful marriage and having recovered from a mental breakdown, Humbert moves to the small New England town of Ramsdale to write. He rents a room in the house of Charlotte Haze, a widow. Humbert also meets her 12-year-old daughter, Dolores (born 1935), known as "Lo", "Lola", or "Dolly", with whom he immediately becomes infatuated, partly due to her uncanny resemblance to Annabel, and privately nicknames her "Lolita". Humbert stays at the house only to remain near her.

While Dolores is away at summer camp, Charlotte, who has fallen in love with Humbert, tells him that he must either marry her or move out. Humbert agrees to marry Charlotte in order to continue living near Lolita. Charlotte is oblivious to Humbert's distaste for her, as well as his lust for Lolita, until she reads his diary. Learning of Humbert's true feelings and intentions, Charlotte plans to flee and send Lolita to a reform school, threatening to expose Humbert as a "detestable, abominable, criminal fraud." However, fate intervenes on Humbert's behalf: as she runs across the street in a state of shock, Charlotte is struck and killed by a passing car.

Humbert picks Lolita up from camp, pretending that Charlotte has been hospitalised. Rather than return to Charlotte's home, Humbert takes Lolita to a hotel, where he gives her sleeping pills. As he waits for the pills to take effect, he wanders through the hotel and meets a man who seems to know who he is. Humbert excuses himself from the strange conversation and returns to the room. There, he tries molesting Lolita but finds that the sedative is too mild. Instead, she initiates sex the next morning, after explaining that she had slept with a boy at camp. Later, Humbert reveals to Lolita that Charlotte is dead, giving her no choice but to accept her stepfather into her life on his terms or face foster care.

Lolita and Humbert drive around the country, moving from state to state and motel to motel. In order to keep Lolita from going to the police, Humbert tells her if he is arrested, she will become a ward of the state and lose all her clothes and belongings. He also bribes her for sexual favours, though he knows that she does not reciprocate his love and shares none of his interests. After a year touring North America, the two settle down in another New England town, where Lolita is enrolled in a girls school. Humbert becomes very possessive and strict, forbidding Lolita to take part in after-school activities or to associate with boys. However, most of the townspeople see this as the action of a loving and concerned, though old-fashioned, parent.

Lolita begs to be allowed to take part in the school play, and Humbert reluctantly grants his permission in exchange for more sexual favours. The play is written by Clare Quilty. He is said to have attended a rehearsal and been impressed by Lolita's acting. Just before opening night, Lolita and Humbert have a ferocious argument, and Lolita runs away while Humbert assures the neighbours everything is fine. He searches frantically until he finds her exiting a phone booth. She is in a bright, pleasant mood, saying that she tried to reach him at home and that a "great decision has been made." They go to buy drinks and Lolita tells Humbert she doesn't care about the play and wants to resume their travels.

As Lolita and Humbert drive westward again, Humbert gets the feeling that their car is being tailed and becomes increasingly paranoid, suspecting that Lolita is conspiring with others in order to escape. She falls ill and must convalesce in a hospital while Humbert stays in a nearby motel, without Lolita for the first time in years. One night, Lolita disappears from the hospital, with the staff telling Humbert that her "uncle" checked her out. Humbert embarks upon a frantic search to find Lolita and her abductor, but eventually gives up.

During this time, Humbert has a two-year relationship (ending in 1952) with a woman named Rita, whom he describes as a "kind, good sport" who "solemnly approve[s]" of his search for Lolita, while knowing none of the details.

Humbert receives a letter from Lolita, now 17, who tells him that she is married (making her name now Dolores Schiller), pregnant, and in desperate need of money. Humbert goes to see Lolita, giving her money in exchange for the name of the man who abducted her. She reveals the truth: Clare Quilty checked her out of the hospital after following them throughout their travels and tried to make her star in one of his pornographic films. When she refused, he threw her out. 

She worked odd jobs before meeting and marrying her husband, who knows nothing about her past. Humbert asks Lolita to leave her husband, Dick, and live with him, to which she refuses. He gives her a large sum of money anyway, which secures her future. As he leaves she smiles and shouts goodbye in a "sweet, American" way.

Humbert finds Quilty, whom he intends to kill, at his mansion. Before doing so, he first wants Quilty to understand why he must die, for he took advantage of Humbert, a sinner, and he took advantage of a disadvantage. Eventually, Humbert shoots him dead, and exits the house. Shortly afterward, he is arrested for driving on the wrong side of the road and swerving. 

The narrative closes with Humbert's final words to Lolita in which he wishes her well, and reveals the novel in its metafiction to be the memoirs of his life, only to be published after he and Lolita have both died.

Lolita is frequently described as an "erotic novel", both by some critics but also in a standard reference work on literature Facts on File: Companion to the American Short Story.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia called Lolita "an experiment in combining an erotic novel with an instructive novel of manners." The same description of the novel is found in Desmond Morris' reference work The Book of Ages. A survey of books for Women's Studies courses describes it as a "tongue-in-cheek erotic novel". Books focused on the history of erotic literature such as Michael Perkins' The Secret Record: Modern Erotic Literature also so classify Lolita.

More cautious classifications have included a "novel with erotic motifs" or one of "a number of works of classical erotic literature and art, and to novels that contain elements of eroticism, like ... Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover".

However, this classification has been disputed. Malcolm Bradbury writes "at first famous as an erotic novel, Lolita soon won its way as a literary one—a late modernist distillation of the whole crucial mythology." Samuel Schuman says that Nabokov "is a surrealist, linked to Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Kafka. Lolita is characterized by irony and sarcasm. It is not an erotic novel".

Lance Olsen writes "The first 13 chapters of the text, culminating with the oft-cited scene of Lo unwittingly stretching her legs across Humbert's excited lap [...] are the only chapters suggestive of the erotic." Nabokov himself observes in the novel's afterword that a few readers were "misled. [by the opening of the book]...into assuming this was going to be a lewd book...[expecting] the rising succession of erotic scenes; when these stopped, the readers stopped, too, and felt bored."

Style and interpretation

The novel is a tragicomedy narrated by Humbert, who riddles the narrative with word play and his wry observations of American culture. His humour provides an effective counterpoint to the pathos of the tragic plot. The novel's flamboyant style is characterised by double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages such as nymphet, a word that has since had a life of its own and can be found in most dictionaries, and the lesser-used "faunlet". One of the novel's characters, "Vivian Darkbloom", is an anagram of the author's name.

Several times, the narrator begs the reader to understand that he is not proud of his rape of Lolita and is filled with remorse. At one point he listens to the sounds of children playing outdoors, and is stricken with guilt at the realisation that he robbed Lolita of her childhood. When he is reunited with the 17-year-old Lolita, he realises that he still loves her, even though she no longer is the nymphet of his dreams.

Some critics have accepted Humbert's version of events at face value. In 1959, novelist Robertson Davies excused the narrator entirely, writing that the theme of Lolita is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. This is no pretty theme, but it is one with which social workers, magistrates and psychiatrists are familiar."

Most writers, however, have given less credit to Humbert and more to Nabokov's powers as an ironist. For Richard Rorty, in his interpretation of Lolita in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Humbert is a "monster of incuriosity." Nabokov himself described Humbert as "a vain and cruel wretch" and "a hateful person."

In his essay on Stalinism Koba the Dread, Martin Amis proposes that Lolita is an elaborate metaphor for the totalitarianism that destroyed the Russia of Nabokov's childhood (though Nabokov states in his afterword that he "[detests] symbols and allegories"). Amis interprets it as a story of tyranny told from the point of view of the tyrant. "Nabokov, in all his fiction, writes with incomparable penetration about delusion and coercion, about cruelty and lies," he says. "Even Lolita, especially Lolita, is a study in tyranny."

Critics have further noted that the novel gives very little information about what Lolita is personally like, that in effect she has been silenced. Nomi Tamir-Ghez writes "Not only is Lolita's voice silenced, her point of view, the way she sees the situation and feels about it, is rarely mentioned and can be only surmised by the reader...since it is Humbert who tells the story...throughout most of the novel, the reader is absorbed in Humbert's feelings". 

Similarly Mica Howe and Sarah Appleton Aguiar write that the novel silences and objectifies Lolita. Christine Clegg notes that this is a recurring theme in criticism of the novel in the 1990s. Actor Brian Cox, who played Humbert in a 2009 one-man stage monologue based on the novel, stated that the novel is "not about Lolita as a flesh and blood entity. It's Lolita as a memory". He concluded that a stage monologue would be truer to the book than any film could possibly be.

Elizabeth Janeway writing in The New York Review of Books holds "Humbert is every man who is driven by desire, wanting his Lolita so badly that it never occurs to him to consider her as a human being, or as anything but a dream-figment made flesh".

Clegg sees the novel's non-disclosure of Lolita's feelings as directly linked to the fact that her "real" name is Dolores and (in the novel but not the film) only Humbert refers to her as Lolita.  Humbert also states he has effectively "solipsized" Lolita early in the novel. 

Eric Lemay of Northwestern University writes: 

The human child, the one noticed by non-nymphomaniacs, answers to other names, "Lo," "Lola," "Dolly," and, least alluring of all, "Dolores." "But in my arms," asserts Humbert, "she was always Lolita." And in his arms or out, "Lolita" was always the creation of Humbert's craven self.... The Siren-like Humbert sings a song of himself, to himself, and titles that self and that song "Lolita." ... To transform Dolores into Lolita, to seal this sad adolescent within his musky self, Humbert must deny her her humanity.

In 2003 Iranian expatriate Azar Nafisi published the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran about a covert women's reading group. In an NPR interview Nafasi contrasts the sorrowful and seductive sides of Dolores/Lolita's character. She notes "Because her name is not Lolita, her real name is Dolores which as you know in Latin means dolour, so her real name is associated with sorrow and with anguish and with innocence, while Lolita becomes a sort of light-headed, seductive, and airy name. The Lolita of our novel is both of these at the same time and in our culture here today we only associate it with one aspect of that little girl and the crassest interpretation of her." Following Nafasi's comments, the NPR interviewer, Madeleine Brand, lists as embodiments of the latter side of Lolita, "the Long Island Lolita, Britney Spears, the Olsen twins, and Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita".

For Nafisi, the essence of the novel is Humbert's solipsism and his erasure of Lolita's independent identity. She writes: "Lolita was given to us as Humbert's creature [...] To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own [...] Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert's attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her history, that past is still given to us in glimpses."

One of the novel's early champions, Lionel Trilling, warned in 1958 of the moral difficulty in interpreting a book with so eloquent and so self-deceived a narrator: "we find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents [...] we have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting."

The novel abounds in allusions to classical and modern literature. Virtually all of them have been noted in The Annotated Lolita edited and annotated by Alfred Appel, Jr. Many are references to Humbert's own favourite poet, Edgar Allan Poe.

Humbert Humbert's first love, Annabel Leigh, is named after the "maiden" in the poem "Annabel Lee" by Poe; this poem is alluded to many times in the novel, and its lines are borrowed to describe Humbert's love. A passage in chapter 11 reuses verbatim Poe's phrase ...by the side of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride. 

In the opening of the novel, the phrase Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied, is a pastiche of two passages of the poem, the winged seraphs of heaven (line 11), and The angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me (lines 21–2). Nabokov originally intended Lolita to be called The Kingdom by the Sea, drawing on the rhyme with Annabel Lee that was used in the first verse of Poe's work. A variant of this line is reprised in the opening of chapter one, which reads ...had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea.

Humbert Humbert's double name recalls Poe's "William Wilson", a tale in which the main character is haunted by his doppelgänger, paralleling to the presence of Humbert's own doppelgänger, Clare Quilty. Humbert is not, however, his real name, but a chosen pseudonym.

Chapter 26 of Part One contains a parody of Joyce's stream of consciousness.

Humbert Humbert's field of expertise is French literature (one of his jobs is writing a series of educational works that compare French writers to English writers), and as such there are several references to French literature, including the authors Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, François Rabelais, Charles Baudelaire, Prosper Mérimée, Remy Belleau, Honoré de Balzac, and Pierre de Ronsard.

Vladimir Nabokov was fond of Lewis Carroll and had translated Alice in Wonderland into Russian. He even called Carroll the "first Humbert Humbert". Lolita contains a few brief allusions in the text to the Alice books, though overall Nabokov avoided direct allusions to Carroll. In her book, Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin, Joyce Milton claims that a major inspiration for the novel was Charlie Chaplin's relationship with his second wife, Lita Grey, whose real name was Lillita and is often misstated as Lolita. 

Graham Vickers in his book Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again argues that the two major real-world predecessors of Humbert are Lewis Carroll and Charlie Chaplin. Although Appel's comprehensive Annotated Lolita contains no references to Charlie Chaplin, others have picked up several oblique references to Chaplin's life in Nabokov's book. 

Bill Delaney notes that at the end Lolita and her husband move to the Alaskan town of Grey Star while Chaplin's The Gold Rush, set in Alaska, was originally set to star Lita Grey. Lolita's first sexual encounter was with a boy named Charlie Holmes, whom Humbert describes as "the silent...but indefatigable Charlie." Chaplin had an artist paint Lita Grey in imitation of Joshua Reynolds's painting The Age of Innocence. When Humbert visits Lolita in a class at her school, he notes a print of the same painting in the classroom. Delaney's article notes many other parallels as well.

The foreword refers to "the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933 by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken book"—that is, the decision in the case United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, in which Woolsey ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene and could be sold in the United States.

In chapter 29 of Part Two, Humbert comments that Lolita looks "like Botticelli's russet Venus—the same soft nose, the same blurred beauty", referencing Sandro Botticelli's depiction of Venus in, perhaps, The Birth of Venus or Venus and Mars.

In chapter 35 of Part Two, Humbert's "death sentence" on Quilty parodies the rhythm and use of anaphora in T. S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday.

Many other references to classical and Romantic literature abound, including references to Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and to the poetry of Laurence Sterne.

The Film 

Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze, and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty.

The film had considerable difficulty finding an American distributor and premiered in Europe before being released in America, where it was met with much controversy. The film was picked up in the United States by Showtime, a cable network, before finally being released theatrically by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. The performances by Irons and Swain impressed audiences, but, although praised by some critics for its faithfulness to Nabokov's narrative, the film received a mixed critical reception in the United States. Following its theatrical release, the film was distributed on VHS and DVD, both now out of print, by Pathé.

In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a European professor of French literature, travels to the United States to take a teaching position in New Hampshire. He rents a room in the home of widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), largely because he sees her adolescent daughter Dolores (Dominique Swain), also called "Lo", while touring the house. Obsessed from boyhood with girls of this age (whom he calls "nymphets"), partly because of a boyhood sexual experience and subsequent tragic loss, Humbert marries Charlotte for the sake of access to her daughter.

Later in their marriage, Charlotte becomes furious after she, by way of reading Humbert's secret diary, discovers Humbert's preference for her daughter. Moments after, Charlotte goes to the mailbox to mail some letters when she is struck by a car and killed. 

Her death frees Humbert to pursue a sexual and emotional relationship with Lo, whom he nicknames "Lolita". Humbert and Lo then travel the country, staying in various motels before eventually settling in the college town of Beardsley, where Humbert takes a teaching job. 

However, Lo's increasing boredom with Humbert, as well as her growing desire for independence, fuels a constant tension between them. Humbert's desperate affections for Lo are also rivaled by another man, playwright Clare Quilty (Frank Langella), who has been pursuing Lo since the beginning of their travels. Quilty's name and identity are at first unknown to Humbert, and when Lo runs away to him, Humbert's search for her is unsuccessful.

Three years later, Humbert receives a letter from Lo asking for financial help. Humbert visits Lo, who is now married to another man and pregnant. Humbert, who still loves Lo, asks her to run away with him, but she refuses. He relents and gives her a substantial amount of money and information about her inheritance from her mother. Lo also reveals to Humbert how Quilty actually tracked young girls her age and took them to Pavor Manor, his home in Parkington, to film the girls performing various sexual acts with the help of his assistant Vivian.

She also tells him about how after being taken from Humbert, Quilty tried to film Lo performing sex acts in a group setting. When Lo refused and preferred Quilty to be like a father to her, Quilty left Lo on her own. 

After his visit with Lo, Humbert tracks down Quilty and kills him. After being chased by the police, Humbert is arrested and sent to prison. He dies in November 1950, and Lo dies on Christmas Day in childbirth.

Wikipedia 

Other Links

The Bloodshed of Ascension. Human Rights. Love. The Stockholm Syndrome. Amera Ziganii Rao

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bloodshed-of-ascension-human-rights.html

Exodus. The Myth of Romantic Love. Amera Ziganii Rao

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/exodus-myth-of-romantic-love-amera.html

The Hero's (Heroine's) Journey. Joseph Campbell

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/heros-heroines-journey-joseph-campbell.html

The Other Side of Misogyny Pt ll. Women and Desire. Polly Young-Eisendrath

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/love-psychology-pt-ll-men-with-women-of.html

The Psychology Pt ll. Men with Women of Power. Susan Edwards

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/love-psychology-pt-ll-men-with-women-of.html

The High Priestess (Priest) and the Mortal. Virulent Madness. Amera Ziganii Rao

http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/high-priestess-priest-and-mortal.html

And God Created Woman. A Self Portrait. Amera Ziganii Rao Photography 

AMERA ZIGANII RAO

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My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living.

I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live.

We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived.

But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years.

The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world.

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life.

The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love.

They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe™. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth.

The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. The Hierophants.

They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you.

I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done.

Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift.

You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Amera Ziganii Rao is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012


Thank you to outside sources for photography and artwork. Darkroomed by Amera Ziganii Rao