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To: oblomov

Lolita is one of the finest novels of the latter half of the 20th century. It is even BETTER if you have read Nabokov's thoroughgoing contempt for this vivid character he created, Humbert Humbert. And the best testimony to his greatness as an artist that he could invent such an amoral self-deceiver as Humbert, while himself being the most loyal, meditative, butterfly-chasing husband to the same woman for many decades.


74 posted on 10/26/2006 7:41:33 PM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Talent hits targets no one else can hit, but genius hits targets no one else can see"--Schopenhauer)
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To: supremedoctrine

I agree. I love the novels Lolita and Nabokov's other work (esp. Pale Fire and his short stories). Lolita is a complex novel that touches on many issues that are relevant even today, such as the cultural clash between Europe and America, modernism vs. postmodernism, and the seductive vulgarity of American culture.

The novel was scandalous at one time because of the ostensible subject matter of the novel. Although not the first instance of the "unreliable narrator" as a literary device, Nabokov developed HH brilliantly, much more convincingly that the "mad" narrators of "Notes from Underground" or "Diary of a Madman".

IMO


77 posted on 10/26/2006 8:43:09 PM PDT by oblomov (Join the FR Folding@Home Team (#36120) keyword: folding@home)
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