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Comment by Hard_Space | Hacker News Reader

I have to say that the 'critical' quotations from the book are uncharacteristic of a project where the target of the biography (and this is a kind of biography) is cooperating and participating - and particularly when they have veto.

Most writers know the score in this respect: unauthorized coverage is harder-hitting and may be more accurate, whereas authorized coverage has inside scoops, but is unlikely to be allowed to contain very critical barbs.

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Think the issue is, Kubrick was so sensitive, that even the most mild criticism was taken badly. So the author knows the score, and treads lightly, and is still jumped on.

The author was hired to do a 'nice' book, and was pretty nice but the customer was a Prima donna and rejected it anyway.

Think we've all encountered bad customers like this.

I don't know - I think the author was hoping for tremendous indulgence from Kubrick when attempting to get him to green-light quotes like:

'There are good things in Lolita. But in too many respects it squanders, impoverishes and conventionalises its source material, draining it of its complexity, nymphetry and eroticism.'

It's valid criticism, because it's a point of view, but I wouldn't expect anything quite that harsh in a collaborative work.

Since Kubrick had opportunity to respond, he was able to respond to the draft, he could have used it as opportunity to explain the censorship of the time that lead to that outcome. The article even mentions that later Kubrick tended to agree with that view of Lolita.

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