Your Bible

[Faust]

I think that is a reductive reading of the book. I would never venture to say that Lolita is ABOUT pedophilia. The plot is, but the conflicts and ideas at the center of the book? No way. Lolita is about time, missed opportunities, the nature of love, the nature of manipulation, the blurriness of reality...but not pedophilia. Nabokov might've chosen any number of other vehicles through which to demonstrate his point. He chose pedophilia. The "immoral conflict" is nowhere near the center of the book. It is a peripheral device that might've easily been substituted with another.

Haha, incredible. It's not a reductive reading of the book - it's a part of the book, the central part. If anything, all the other stuff is peripheral. You are concentrating on the beauty of SS uniforms while they are burning a village.

[casem]

I don't read as much as I should but two books that have had a huge impact on me are L'entranger by Camus and The Problem of the Soul by Owen Flanagan.

[Faust]

I am wondering why you think this. Where in the subtext of the book is there commentary about pedophilia? Where is the moral ending? Why is Lolita dead, and not HH? What is Quilty supposed to have to do with any of this, why is Lolita both innocent and complicit, why do we give a damn about Annabel Lee? More questions to come, but I'd like to hear your reasoning for this assumption other than the fact that it is a central plot device

If it had a happy ending, would that make as great of a novel? What ending would you offer? HH is going to jail, maybe for life. But moreover, his guilt is killing him. He tried to buy his redemption, if you remember, by offering to finance Lolita's family life. Quilty clearly shows the degree of crime Humbert Humbert has committed, if Lolita chooses to get away with him. Lolita's death, I don't know - because Nabokov is Russian - we couldn't have it any less fucked up way. She does die at childbirth though - it's not like she commits suicide. Annabel Leigh is an impetus for his lure towards nimphettes. Don't forget, although HH builds himself into a sympathetic character, he doesn't view himself as one. He knows exactly what he did.

But anyway, that wasn't my point. What I was saying is that the morality of the play is the central part, and I don't know how you can say that reading is reductive, when you are concentrating on things that are peripheral - isn't that a more of a reductive reading?!

[Faust]

I don't read as much as I should but two books that have had a huge impact on me are L'entranger by Camus and The Problem of the Soul by Owen Flanagan.

Dude, you gotta read Camus's The Fall - so much better than The Stranger, IMHO.

[destroyed]

I don't know that you can compare the two. The Fall is all internal, whereas the Stranger is completely opaque on that front... all exteriority, I guess, except for like the last page. The Judge-Penitent business in the The Fall is totally essential to navigating this world, in my opinion, whereas The Stranger is like a handbook to just failing at life.

[Faust]

I guess I did not mean to compare the two in a sense that you compare two things of similar nature. I just like the self-consciousness of the Fall, and I've rarely seen a more fitting title for a book. The book is like vertigo, you know you are doing something terrible to yourself and yet you are doing it. So human.

[destroyed]

I'd like to have a tea party with Jean-Baptiste Clamence (had to google his name, I admit) and Dostoyevsky's Underground man. Maybe play a bit of Twister.

[casem]

I have and I agree (I think I've read everything Camus). The Stranger had a greater impact though because it was my introduction to Camus in hishschool and at them time exploring existentialism confirmed many ideas I had recently been forming.

Dude, you gotta read Camus's The Fall - so much better than The Stranger, IMHO.

[Real Real]

Somebody called Lolita Nabokov's "love affair with the romantic novel". Nabokov's response was "the substitution of 'English language' for 'romantic novel' would make this elegant formula more correct". Nabokov also wrote "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English".

I agree - the pedophilia is just a plot device.

[laika]

I'm not really satisfied with interpretations that divorce "plot devices" from aesthetics....it seems like a rather dated approach to literary criticism, no?

I have to say that Lolita is also one of my go-to books when i am writing, although for different reasons. The sheer genius of the prose
( as well as the pain of the story) consistently compel me. I also love the audio book as read by Jeremy Irons.

ps. all this lolita talk reminds me how much i miss dbc, with whom i once had a good debate about this book!

[Real Real]

Reading Lolita makes me consider my own desire for immortality and ecstatic experiences and the choices involved in pursuing those things (more I think about it, the more it seems like really good choice for this thread).

The fact that HH's crime is pedophilia fits the story, but I don't think it's interesting in itself. I mean, what, do you think that Lolita has a moral and that that moral is that you shouldn't sleep with little girls?

[Faust]

I'm not really satisfied with interpretations that divorce "plot devices" from aesthetics....it seems like a rather dated approach to literary criticism, no?

I have to say that Lolita is also one of my go-to books when i am writing, although for different reasons. The sheer genius of the prose
( as well as the pain of the story) consistently compel me. I also love the audio book as read by Jeremy Irons.

ps. all this lolita talk reminds me how much i miss dbc, with whom i once had a good debate about this book!

I miss DBC too. The ironic thing is that I had a debate with him along the same lines and I was on MonaDahl's side in a way :-). It was something different though, we were talking about HH's character, I think.

Real_Real, I think the main point is just that - that it's so easy to like HH, because he is an intelligent, witty, charming... pedophile. I think Lolita's morals is a moot point - she's an adolescent.

[destroyed]

I have and I agree (I think I've read everything Camus). The Stranger had a greater impact though because it was my introduction to Camus in hishschool and at them time exploring existentialism confirmed many ideas I had recently been forming.

Yeah, plus, there's the F'ing CURE song to drive it home!
(I guess The Fall was named after The Fall, so I guess that is a pretty good association, too.)

[Real Real]

Have you read Pale Fire? How do you think HH compares to Kinbote?

[Faust]

I have not. Lolita is the only Nabokov work I've read. Pale Fire is on the list though.