Posted on 06/03/2015 8:47:37 AM PDT by Borges
In January of 1959, the 600 residents of Lolita, Texas, found themselves in the midst of an improbable identity crisis. The town had been named in 1909 for Lolita Reese, the granddaughter of a Texas patriot. But following the U.S. publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel in 1958, “Lolita” had suddenly acquired a whole new set of connotations.
“The people in this town are god-fearing, church going, and we resent the fact our town has been tied in with the title of a dirty, sex-filled book that tells the nasty story of a middle-aged man’s love affair with a very young girl.” So read a petition circulated by R. T. Walker, deacon of the local First Baptist Church, who hoped to change the town’s name from Lolita to Jackson. In the end, however, the proud citizens of Lolita decided to hunker down and wait out the storm: As the Texas historian Fred Tarpley put it, “Lolita was retained with the hope that the novel and the [upcoming] film would soon be forgotten."
In fairness to the good people of Lolita, nobody in 1959 could have predicted what the future had in store for Lolita. In the ensuing decades, Nabokov’s novel spawned two films, musical adaptations, ballets, stage adaptations (including one legendarily disastrous Edward Albee–directed production starring Donald Sutherland as Humbert Humbert), a Russian-language opera, spin-off novels, bizarre fashion subcultures, and memorabilia that runs the gamut from kitschy to creepy: from heart-shaped sunglasses to anatomically precise blow-up dolls. With the possible exception of Gatsby, no twentieth-century American literary character penetrated the public consciousness quite like Lolita. Her very name entered the language as a common noun: “a precociously seductive girl,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...
I didn't think you thought that :-)
My interpretation, which isn't particularly insightful, is that the girl's name is a reference to her suffering, and that Humbert's reconfiguration of the name is symbolic of his trivialization of her suffering.
These days that's almost a guarantee that it will be made.
The same could be said about "On The Road" or "Catcher In The Rye". More wasted time. Only "Naked Lunch" was half-way decent and still not easily understood. I won't pretend I even understood what was going on.
What flaws did it have? It’s one of the great American novels...one of the great novels about America.
It could be filmed with an NC17 rating, if they want to show explicit scenes. And if they get a young looking girl who is at least 18, but looks younger, no child porn laws will be violated. I expect that this will be made into a movie with nothing left to imagination.
The novel has no explicit scenes at all.
If the novel has no explicit scenes, then is the talk of racy content all in the minds of people who assume the worst? I never read the book. But from comments here and others I’ve heard, I thought the story involved a sexual relationship.
It does. The novel implies what’s going on...never describes it.
It might be said, the movie "American Beauty", the central plot, was a take off from "Lolita".
"Catcher In The Rye" was just too odd for me. Holden Caulfield (?), was an odd one. I'll take it as a compliment to myself because it seems to be the handbook for screwballs.
"Naked Lunch" was interesting as a piece writing. The description and the narrative were interesting but alien. I think knowing it was "drug related" kept me at arm's length. Not consciously but on another level. I just wasn't grasping something about it.
There is another novel from that time period or "counter-culture" genre that I keep forgetting to read. I think my "swing and miss" history could be the reason.
I would say I enjoyed "M*A*S*H", the novel. If you haven't read it, I would recommend it. It's nothing like the Alan Alda sermonizing. Robert Altman's movie was closer to the book, except Hawkeye was actually a Conservative.
Well not liking the characters seems a pretty be nign reason to call the entire work ‘garbage’. :)
Incidentally, Robert Altman and the guy who wrote the novel both disliked the TV show considerably. On the DVD audio commentary for the film, Altman derisively refers to ‘the TV show with Alan Arthur or whatever his name is’. It’s amusing.
On the other hand, maybe the books were written well based upon my disdain?
Oops. I do normal check things like that before posting. Humbert it is.
Interesting so far, I’ll have to finish it later.
“...Hannity’s “Independence Day” bumper music on his show...”
A lot of people just never listen to the words. But I will say that gal sings the heck out of that song. Martina McBride?
Or that Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” is sung in praise of the drug.
A question for FR English scholars:
I have tried several times to read Lolita and failed each time. The book bores me more than the first what seems like 800 pages of James Michener’s Hawaii, where there are no characters and nothing happens except that an island forms very slowly. I cannot connect to any of the Lolita characters enough to care what happens to them, or why, or how, any more than I care about James Michener’s rock drying up in the Pacific. That is rare for me with classics, and I plan to try again to read it. Any suggestions on a good outline/companion/summary that would help me to in some way appreciate Nabokov’s work or his technique enough to understand whatever makes it worth reading?
Lolita is not about narrative...it’s a giant game by Nabokov. The narrator is a deranged intellectual who imposes all sorts of baroque observations and interpretations on the most banal aspects of everyday American life. Try keeping up with all the literary allusions. Enjoy all the puns in various languages. I would recommend Alfred Appel’s Annotated edition which makes all that clear.
Thank you. That would explain why I was missing the point. I’ll give Appel a try.
Or, similarly, that John Lennon singing the Beatles’ Revolution was endorsing violent revolution. Quite the opposite.
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