Hutch Is Reading *What*?

[frescadp]

I. Reading Lolita in Bay City

Marz and I clicked through another Starsky and Hutch scene in Hutch's Bay City [LA] bungalow. (Episode: "Kill Huggy Bear", 1975)

"What's that book on his table?" Marz said. "It's . . . I think it's Lolita!"

We googled Lolita covers, and there it was--the 50¢ Crest Giant edition, published in 1959, five years after the novel's first appearance; so Hutch's copy is sixteen years old. Maybe he bought it years ago and is only now reading it, or re-reading it?

[Onscreen, the "–lita" on the curled-up book cover is clearer than in this screencap.]

Why is Hutch reading Lolita?

No doubt he's professionally interested in sexuality that leaves "a sinuous trail of slime".*

I suspect Hutch is personally interested in sexual difference too--cf. his Toulouse-Lautrec painting of two women in bed. He looks like the clean-cut one, but it seems like he's repressing a lot. (Starsky seems more straightforward [not to say "straight"] to me.)

Hutch, I contend (in my view of him as NOT coming from an upper-middle class background), might also be making up for lost time by reading his way through the Modern Library's "100 Best Novels of the Twentieth Century" (from 1998, but he'd have had some such list).
Lolita is no. 4.

II. More '70s Poster Art

The poster on Hutch's wall above Lolita is never in focus, but I had a vague sense it was a bicycle poster.

I'd forgotten, but they were in vogue when I was a teenager.
[Being reminded is one of the pleasures of watching this show.]

Sure enough--I googled images of vintage bicycle posters, and it's a 1970s reprint of a poster from the late 1800s for Clement Cycles of Paris. Hutch seems to have a small thing for French fin de siècle art.

The Esty seller says:
"From A 1973 Collection Of Old Bike Posters.
The book was produced on the 100th anniversary of the invention of the bicycle.
It was also the 100th anniversary of color lithography which made mass produced color posters possible. "
________________________________________
* Re slime, from Lolita, II.3, by Vladimir Nabokov:

"We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep."

Comments

[duluthgirl.livejournal.com]

I am taken by your insights with Hutch's belongings! So interesting and observant. Please keep informing us of your findings I love the way you think!

[frescadp.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Hutch is like a big intriguing puzzle---fun to keep looking for the missing pieces. :)

[taass64.livejournal.com]

Fascinating, fascinating, fascinating!! I love your analysis and I love the things you notice!!

I have one for you! I think this post was years ago, but I was noticing things in Starsky's apartment during the episode RUNNING,which if you haven't gotten there is late season 1. Anyway, check out my post about this giant "thing" that was smack in the middle of his kitchen. Best thing about it is that you can watch the ep over and over and not notice it. Then, once you do, you have to wonder how you missed it. What the hell is it and why is it in his kitchen?

http://taass64.livejournal.com/6536.html

[frescadp.livejournal.com]

Thanks, TAASS!

I left a comment on your post saying I think that thing on Starsky's table is a bench vise:
it has clamps and levers for holding items (like car parts) firmly in place while you work on them.
Not sure, but it looks like ones on Google images.

[frescadp.livejournal.com]

P.S. I showed the Thing on Starsky's Table to my friend who is the REAL Starky & Hutch fan
She says:
"At first I thought it was a mixer---for making cookie dough!
But I think you're right it's a bench vise.
He also has a mobile of mechanical parts, which I assume he made himself (so cute, the idea of it).
More importantly, check out that orange and blue pot-holder. It says "COOL". And there's a fern."

[taass64.livejournal.com]

That apartment has all sorts of thing in it. Even a carusel horse! Actually it doesn't really "fit" him all that well. But season two he is in another much better more HIM apartment.

[frescadp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed that too about Starsky's apartments. And Hutch has a whole motorcycle in his first apartment too, which seems odd...

[taass64.livejournal.com]

I think the actors both rode them in real life, but the characters never did!!