Posted on 09/08/2010 9:23:51 AM PDT by usalady
Vladimir Nabokov's book about the affair between a twelve-year-old girl and a middle-aged man was banned because it was considered pornography
(Excerpt) Read more at suite101.com ...
Its pederasty and pornography.
No arguing that.
Nasty stuff..What’s your point?
It is extremely well written, literary pederasty and pornography. In other words, you are correct.
A colossal bore.
I’m trying to figure out the relevance of this post at this point in time.
It might well be... but, as a writer, the man has an excellent handle on the english language. He is an artist in his emotion and descriptions.
One of my favorites.
At least it was readable. I tried to read Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”, which was contemporaneous to Nabokov’s “Lolita” and similarly banned. I gave up. That clown couldn’t write.
I simply could not believe the movie was made and shown at the time. Though there were no overtly sexual scenes the innuendo was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw.
i’ll probably take a pass on this one.
i recently acquired ignatous donnelly’s “atlantis: the antediluvian world”. this gem was not banned, just shunned.
What passes for such then and now has been vastly different. Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster were both 10 year old whores in the movies and naked. Today, you would be more ‘hunted’ than Roman Polanski if you even suggested making such films.
Yet, then, you had to buy dirty books in seedy stores on the bad side of town, whereas today a child can accidentally google NASTY FILTHY and VERY Disturbing images of stuff so gross as to make you violently ill.
But I have no idea what makes this newsworthy today?
Wowser!
The book should serve as a cautionary tale.
We hear more and more cases of women w/ young children who are courted by pedophiles (in order to get at their children).
In many cases, the women do not believe the children’s stories about being sexually abused. They do not want to hear bad things about the men they love.
Nabokov was a great anti-Communist, his family were White Russians, and his father while in exile was murdered by Bolsheviks. His book Bend Sinister is about a Leftist Totalitarian State that promotes ‘Ekwalism’ at the point of the gun and whose dictator is shown to be an emotionally arrested man-child.
Well, for sure it's not pederasty, for a couple of reasons. First, Lolita is a girl; and second, anal intercourse was probably not on the menu....
One might make a better case for it being pedophilia, but I think even that's a stretch for the particular character Nabokov created.
As for pornography ... one can plausibly argue that it is pornography ("the depiction of erotic behavior ... intended to cause sexual excitement"); and the profoundly disturbing part is that it's very effective as such.
well said
BTW, the NYC library says you never returned Tropic of Cancer. Mr. Bookman will be paying you a visit.
Speak, memory - one of the best autobiographies I ever read. Nabokov was a Lepidopteran. He discovered some beautiful butterflies.
Hmm, it seems timely.
He also provided insightful observations on contemporary American society and human nature. One needn’t approve of the “arrangement” to appreciate the book. It is pretty clear that the circumstances are not healthy or beneficial for Lolita or Humbert.
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