Posted on 02/22/2017 7:16:01 AM PST by Borges
Many (perceived) great public people of various talents in history have been described as ‘jerks’ and ‘offensive personalities’ in private................
I agree, yet I read the whole thing.
The Gulag Archipelago was very tedious and bot the ‘inspired’ work everyone proclaimed it to be.
dam typos!!!.... I meant NOT the inspired work.
I guess I am back to grammar school...
Isn’t frustrating as hell when a typo or a wrong autofill totally destroy our great literary creations? :)
What do you mean? It certainly does. It’s an inversion of the Henry James model where a naive American goes to Europe and is confounded by their mores. It’s also not remotely pornographic. There is no actual sexual content.
There are plays by Aristophanes I haven’t read yet. Nabakov is pretty far down on the list.
I really don’t give a damn about whether it is allegory or not (and I don’t care if I lose the argument). It is pedophilia no matter whether it is pornographic or not. Ask your wife or daughter to read it and then ask them their opinion of it. Sorry if I sound harsh, I am not trying to pick a fight with anybody.
My wife loves it. Macbeth is about murder. Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories from the point of view of murderers. What’s your argument again?
Humbert is an evil man. He is sexually fixated on Dolores, his own words and actions condemn him. But since the story is told in first person, we get to see through his eyes.
All of the justification and all of the lies he tells himself and others are right there in front of us. But his evil does not describe the entirety of him. He is also witty and has true feelings. And sometimes he even gets the reader to empathize with him, and that brings up feelings of revulsion in us as we realize we have just connected with an evil man.
Thus is life. There are people all around us full of lies and deceit, and yet they have those who would defend them, even if they can't defend the actions. Why?
Nabakov's story tells us why, because no one sees what they are doing as truly evil. They justify and twist their own view of the world to make their actions seem good, at least to them.
Humbert tells us that Dolores is seducing him. Is she? Of course not, he is lying to us and lying to himself.
Humbert says he is taking Dolores away to keep her safe. Is he? Of course not, he knows he is responsible for her mother's death and for traumatizing and raping a young girl, an he doesn't want to face the consequences.
Even at the end, when he comes upon her again, he lies and manipulates his view or reality to make it seem as if he is rescuing her. What is he rescuing her from? Being married and pregnant.
Humbert's tale isn't one that most people can or should be able to relate to, but Dolores herself is all too common of a character in today's world. Lied to, manipulated, abused and frightened by someone who can't see the evil they have in their heart or the evil they do.
Lolita is a look at the world through the eyes of a pedophilic rapist and psychotic murderer. It isn't a celebration of Humbert, it's a warning that Humbert is out there, and he thinks he is the hero of his story.
Thank you for your gracious response.
That it is about pedophilia. I think some subjects should never be turned into art no matter what the idea behind it is. But I happen to have very strong opinions on this because of family abuse. Now I don’t think it should be censored either, but the “artist’ should know better.
What other subjects are off limits? Murder is OK?
If this is accurate, and I personally think it is, then I should have been a literary critic. I, accurately, I think, suggest that Nabakov describes how devastating the relationship became to both subjects, and also very clearly indicates that it was not rape, but passion, that lead to the mutual sexual attraction. I've held this view since I read "Lolita" while in college.
It wasn’t mutual. He imagines and projects all sorts of emotions and motivations on what’s supposed to be a completely ordinary 12 year old.
It is now a perfectly sized base for my playroom cable box. Helps the remote work more efficiently. So it has some value to me.
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