# Cues and Lolita? *The Urth list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 11 Sep 2009* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Matthew Groves *11 Sep 2009, 22:57* Glad to see some activity on the urth list. In the interest of possibly stirring up a little more: I Lolita for the first time a few months ago -- Amazing!!! (But difficult; I recommend an annotated copy or an accompanying class notes booklet.) There's lots of wordplay throughout, and one that I seem to remember reccurring frequently is play with "Q" (as in "Quilty"), "cue," and maybe "clue." Has anyone made any connection between Lolita and Wolfe's short "Cues" from TIoDDaOSaOS? I haven't even reread "Cues" in a year or so, but I thought I'd throw this idea out there anyway. If any of you doesn't have any of Wolfe's collections, then that one (The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories) is the one to begin with, both because it's first and because it's best. --- ### Jonathan Goodwin *11 Sep 2009, 23:29 · in reply to Matthew Groves* I'm actually teaching Island of Dr. Death, etc., in an introduction to short fiction class in a few weeks. The title of the story is actually "'Cues" (i.e., "Cues [unless it's a misprint]). It's an opaque story, and I'm thinking about what I'll have to say about it in class. I recall some discussion on this list about scatological imagery. Wolfe's stories also allow for a ready introduction to questions of interpretation and intention, as the recent discussions about An Evil Guest show. > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Matthew Groves > wrote: > Glad to see some activity on the urth list. In the interest of possibly > stirring up a little more: > > I Lolita for the first time a few months ago -- Amazing!!!? (But difficult; > I recommend an annotated copy or an accompanying class notes booklet.) > There's lots of wordplay throughout, and one that I seem to remember > reccurring frequently is play with "Q" (as in "Quilty"), "cue," and maybe > "clue."? Has anyone made any connection between Lolita and Wolfe's short > "Cues" from TIoDDaOSaOS? I haven't even reread "Cues" in a year or so, but > I thought I'd throw this idea out there anyway. > > If any of you doesn't have any of Wolfe's collections, then that one (The > Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories) is the one to > begin with, both because it's first and because it's best. > > _______________________________________________ --- ### Matthew Groves *12 Sep 2009, 03:01 · in reply to Jonathan Goodwin* The initial open quote on " "Cues " is there because it's, well, the opening of a line of dialog: "Cues?" the young (not really so young any more) man said. "I'm afraid I don't understand." Are you attaching some additional significance to this punctuation? I don't like the scatological interpretation. I suppose I'll go ahead and reread the story, now that I've got the book out... > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Jonathan Goodwin wrote: > > I'm actually teaching Island of Dr. Death, etc., in an introduction to > short fiction class in a few weeks. > > The title of the story is actually "'Cues" (i.e., "Cues [unless it's a > misprint]). It's an opaque story, and I'm thinking about what I'll > have to say about it in class. I recall some discussion on this list > about scatological imagery. Wolfe's stories also allow for a ready > introduction to questions of interpretation and intention, as the > recent discussions about An Evil Guest show. ---