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  • Seventh
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2006
    • 270

    Re: What are you reading?

    [quote user="Faust"]

    What an average American misses when reading that book is that it's a scathing critique of the boorish, inane America by an intellectual European. What they read it for is the sensation of a forbidden and perverted love affair.</p>

    [/quote]</p>

    glad I am not average... nor exactly american. [;)]

    Again, I am only halfway through, but my impression is that Humbert is so charmingly likeable (it is narrated by "him"), yet he is such a twisted, awful, manipulative man. I mean, I agree with both Faust and dontbecruel, nabokov is reveiling the hypocrisies of both Americans and Humbert (the European), i don't think he spares his knives for either.

    Also, totally agree with Nabakov's writing. It just floors me, it is estatic, over-the-top, amazing. I feel like I am dancing through the words when I read it. </p>

    </p>

    Comment

    • laika
      moderator
      • Sep 2006
      • 3787

      Re: What are you reading?



      <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">This is telling:</font></p><pre><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">"And so<span style=""> </span>we<span style=""> </span>rolled<span style=""> </span>East,<span style=""> </span>I<span style=""> </span>more<span style=""> </span>devastated<span style=""> </span>than<span style=""> </span>braced<span style=""> </span>with<span style=""> </span>the

      satisfaction<span style=""> </span>of<span style=""> </span>my<span style=""> </span>passion,<span style=""> </span>and<span style=""> </span>she<span style=""> </span>glowing<span style=""> </span>with health, her bi-iliac

      garland still as brief as a lad's, although she had added two inches to<span style=""> </span>her

      stature<span style=""> </span>and<span style=""> </span>eight<span style=""> </span>pounds<span style=""> </span>to<span style=""> </span>her<span style=""> </span>weight. We had been everywhere. We had

      really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking that our long<span style=""> </span>journey<span style=""> </span>had

      only<span style=""> </span>defiled<span style=""> </span>with<span style=""> </span>a<span style=""> </span>sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy,

      enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was<span style=""> </span>no <span style=""></span>more<span style=""> </span>to<span style=""> </span>us<span style=""> </span>than<span style=""> </span>a

      collection<span style=""> </span>of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in

      the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep."</font><o:p></o:p></pre>
      ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

      Comment

      • dontbecruel
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2006
        • 494

        Re: What are you reading?

        [quote user="laika"]<pre>"...her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep."<o:p></o:p></pre>

        [/quote]</p>

        Isn't that one of the passages Richard Rorty picks up on in the essay Faust referred to above? Rorty is interested in the little throw-away remarks that casually remind you what a horrible thing is happening and draw out the reader's guilt for admiring with Humbert.
        </p>

        Comment

        • laika
          moderator
          • Sep 2006
          • 3787

          Re: What are you reading?

          I haven't read the Rorty essay, but I'm sure it is an oft cited passage. I've never bought into the "reader's guilt for sympathizing with Humbert" line of interpretation though. It sounds like something one rights to address critics who found the book "scandalous." For me, the book is an allegory of Europe and America; and ultimately, a love story. To draw Humbert's (and the reader's) morality into it seems rather obvious and beside the point.
          ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

          Comment

          • Faust
            kitsch killer
            • Sep 2006
            • 37852

            Re: What are you reading?

            George Orwell - Politics and the English Language, for the Nth time. It will serve as the basis for my own essay for the next issue of the student magazine. I'll call it, "Wall Street and the English Language." Aren't I clever.
            Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

            StyleZeitgeist Magazine

            Comment

            • dontbecruel
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2006
              • 494

              Re: What are you reading?



              [quote user="laika"]I haven't read the Rorty essay, but I'm sure it is an oft cited passage. I've never bought into the "reader's guilt for sympathizing with Humbert" line of interpretation though. It sounds like something one rights to address critics who found the book "scandalous." For me, the book is an allegory of Europe and America; and ultimately, a love story. To draw Humbert's (and the reader's) morality into it seems rather obvious and beside the point.
              [/quote]</p>

              It is a story about a girl who is ruthlessly exploited and then dies young in childbirth just when she seems to have a chance of a happy life, all told from the perspective of a vainglorious man to whom those details are irrelevant because he considers the only true values to be aesthetic. All of that is obvious to any careful reader, I agree, but decidely to the point. If the book is interpreted mainly as an allegory about Europe and America, on the other hand, it is without much value. What would such an allegory tell us? That posh Russian expats think the old country was more sophisticated than the new world? Come on!

              </p>

              Comment

              • laika
                moderator
                • Sep 2006
                • 3787

                Re: What are you reading?

                [quote user="dontbecruel"]

                [quote user="laika"]I haven't read the Rorty essay, but I'm sure it is an oft cited passage. I've never bought into the "reader's guilt for sympathizing with Humbert" line of interpretation though. It sounds like something one rights to address critics who found the book "scandalous." For me, the book is an allegory of Europe and America; and ultimately, a love story. To draw Humbert's (and the reader's) morality into it seems rather obvious and beside the point.
                [/quote]</p>

                It is a story about a girl who is ruthlessly exploited and then dies young in childbirth just when she seems to have a chance of a happy life, all told from the perspective of a vainglorious man to whom those details are irrelevant because he considers the only true values to be aesthetic. All of that is obvious to any careful reader, I agree, but decidely to the point. If the book is interpreted mainly as an allegory about Europe and America, on the other hand, it is without much value. What would such an allegory tell us? That posh Russian expats think the old country was more sophisticated than the new world? Come on!

                </p>

                [/quote]</p>

                No--that would be literal, not allegorical. I would say the relationship between Humbert and Lolita allegorizes that between a decaying, decadent (almost poisonous) Old World, and a brash, naive, young America. I hardly think writing about this relationship is without value--just look at the conversation going on in the Collections forum, where "fresh" and "old", are read in terms of American and European. </p>

                Are you saying that Nabokov's point is to play a trick on the reader with language? To seduce him into being swept away by aesthetics, while ignoring the morality of the story? To make the reader identify with Humbert?
                </p>

                </p>

                </p>
                ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                Comment

                • dontbecruel
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 494

                  Re: What are you reading?

                  [quote user="laika"]

                  No--that would be literal, not allegorical. I would say the relationship between Humbert and Lolita allegorizes that between a decaying, decadent (almost poisonous) Old World, and a brash, naive, young America. I hardly think writing about this relationship is without value--just look at the conversation going on in the Collections forum, where "fresh" and "old", are read in terms of American and European. </p>

                  Are you saying that Nabokov's point is to play a trick on the reader with language? To seduce him into being swept away by aesthetics, while ignoring the morality of the story? To make the reader identify with Humbert?
                  </p>

                  [/quote]</p>

                  I understood the kind of allegory you meant. My point was, that such an allegory would simply dramatise Nabakov's feelings about the continent he moved from and the continent he moved to. It would be pretty facile as far as I'm concerned, but those kind of things are not to my taste (each to their own). In any case, this is not the book Nabokov wrote. He wrote about sexual perversion, aestheticism, the curious combination of naievety and jadedness that characterises adolesence, the secret depths of sadness and how easy they are to miss. These are subjects that transcend local historical comparisons between Europe and America, allegorical or literal.
                  </p>

                  Comment

                  • Faust
                    kitsch killer
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 37852

                    Re: What are you reading?

                    dbc, I don't see why both readings should be mutually exclusive.
                    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                    Comment

                    • Seventh
                      Senior Member
                      • Dec 2006
                      • 270

                      Re: What are you reading?



                      [quote user="dontbecruel"]</p>

                      It is a story about a girl who is ruthlessly exploited and then dies young in childbirth just when she seems to have a chance of a happy life, all told from the perspective of a vainglorious man to whom those details are irrelevant because he considers the only true values to be aesthetic. All of that is obvious to any careful reader, I agree, but decidely to the point. If the book is interpreted mainly as an allegory about Europe and America, on the other hand, it is without much value. What would such an allegory tell us? That posh Russian expats think the old country was more sophisticated than the new world? Come on!
                      </p>

                      [/quote]</p>

                      </p>

                      G_d damn, dontbecruel! Haven't I mentioned twice that I am only halfway through the bloody book!!! If you just told me what is going to happen, well, you suck. Seriously, say "spoiler alert" or something... grumble...
                      </p>

                      </p>

                      </p>

                      Comment

                      • dontbecruel
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 494

                        Re: What are you reading?



                        Faust, you're quite right, I was being a bit mean about this. The metaphorical thread Laika describes is very much in the book. I just felt it was a bit reductive to say the book was an allegory for Europe versus America. Nabokov cerainly does play with the ideas.</p>

                        Seventh, don't worry, I haven't given away the ending, although I know it sounds like I have (sorry!)
                        </p>

                        Comment

                        • laika
                          moderator
                          • Sep 2006
                          • 3787

                          Re: What are you reading?

                          [quote user="dontbecruel"][quote user="laika"]

                          No--that would be literal, not allegorical. I would say the relationship between Humbert and Lolita allegorizes that between a decaying, decadent (almost poisonous) Old World, and a brash, naive, young America. I hardly think writing about this relationship is without value--just look at the conversation going on in the Collections forum, where "fresh" and "old", are read in terms of American and European. </p>

                          Are you saying that Nabokov's point is to play a trick on the reader with language? To seduce him into being swept away by aesthetics, while ignoring the morality of the story? To make the reader identify with Humbert?
                          </p>

                          [/quote]</p>

                          I understood the kind of allegory you meant. My point was, that such an allegory would simply dramatise Nabakov's feelings about the continent he moved from and the continent he moved to. It would be pretty facile as far as I'm concerned, but those kind of things are not to my taste (each to their own). In any case, this is not the book Nabokov wrote. He wrote about sexual perversion, aestheticism, the curious combination of naievety and jadedness that characterises adolesence, the secret depths of sadness and how easy they are to miss. These are subjects that transcend local historical comparisons between Europe and America, allegorical or literal.
                          </p>

                          [/quote]</p>

                          I know you know what an allegory is. : ) I was half-kidding when I wrote that.</p>


                          Your
                          interpretation is beautifully articulated and I don't disagree with
                          it. I wasn't trying to reduce the book to a singular reading;I was
                          merely objecting to a moralist critique--which, until you wrote the
                          above post, it sounded like you were making.</p>
                          I'm not normally
                          one to search (or care for) allegory, but Nabokov makes the
                          cartographic dimension of his book very explicit and important. Take
                          his account of their road trip, for example. You could say it's just a
                          metaphor for adolescence, or a coming of age narrative, but that would
                          hardly do justice to Humbert's amazing, minute, and tender descriptions
                          of the American landscape. If that's not "to your taste," fine. But I
                          think you only impoverish the book by dismissing one of its most moving
                          and personal aspects as "facile."

                          </p>
                          ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                          Comment

                          • Faust
                            kitsch killer
                            • Sep 2006
                            • 37852

                            Re: What are you reading?

                            Yea, Seventh, don't worry - it's not a book you read for the plot, you know.
                            Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                            StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                            Comment

                            • dontbecruel
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2006
                              • 494

                              Re: What are you reading?



                              [quote user="laika"]</p>

                              But I
                              think you only impoverish the book by dismissing one of its most moving
                              and personal aspects as "facile."</p>

                              </p>

                              [/quote]</p>

                              Sorry Laika I was on a silly high horse about this yesterday. My personal feeling is that we people who read novels for pleasure mostly read to increase our store of wisdom about the ways people live and feel. There is something intrinsically uplifting about this. Descriptions of novels that claim that a book is actually "about" something else always rub me up the wrong way. But that's my problem not yours!
                              </p>

                              Comment

                              • laika
                                moderator
                                • Sep 2006
                                • 3787

                                Re: What are you reading?



                                Lol, I figured you were feeling curmudgeonly, or something. </p>

                                I understand what you're saying. Over-interpretation often rubs me the wrong way too. </p>

                                At least it made you post, though. [:P]
                                </p>
                                ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                                Comment

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