To think that 'Lolita' is an amazing literary masterpiece?

[Electrascoffee]

I have never wanted to read this book until now, having seen the film which, imo has done the book a great disservice.

Having read it now I think the narrative is exquisite. The book is in no way suggesting that paedophilia is acceptable or normal - quite the opposite in fact. Humbert is clearly a monster - the author leaves us in no doubt about that.

My friend said it's 'a pervy book' but he's never read it! The film, I feel tried to present Humbert in a more sympathetic light which is very annoying.

In my opinion it's a masterpiece that was way ahead of its time. And challenges views about misogyny, victim blaming culture in our society wrt sex crimes.

JacquesHammer

That wouldn't be a sentient point, it would be a sentient reader of the point. I live in hope.

LassWiADelicateAir

You're doing it again. You are trying disguise your poor reading of the very simple point I made with elevated language and the pretence that I have somehow failed to make an academic argument. I wasn't trying. You weren't reading my simple point well.

A more interesting point than whether or not Nabokov had dubious predilections, is whether this matters - would the novel be less worthwhile artistically, if he had been expressing his own urges?

< trying here to nudge the thread back in the direction of the novel, rather than the wording of previous posts! >

A more interesting point than whether or not Nabokov had dubious predilections, is whether this matters - would the novel be less worthwhile artistically, if he had been expressing his own urges?

For me, no it wouldn’t. Someone earlier (forgive me, I forget who) made an excellent point that art doesn’t owe the viewer anything.

The beauty of Lolita for me is the jarring contradiction between the gorgeous prose and the abhorrent subject matter.

*wouldnt make the novel less worthwhile.

Yes - in a way, it's a version of the charming, beautifully dressed, intelligent villain motif that's common in film. The evil is enhanced by being wrapped in an elegant cloak.

The evil is enhanced by being wrapped in an elegant cloak

Totally agree. I think for me that’s why the movie adaptations don’t work. They put too much emphasis on the elegant cloak.

Much like adaptations of WH invariably turn Heathcliff into a romantic figure.

*Pengggwyn can you just make it clear what you do mean, then? You say anyone who writes convincingly about paedophilia must be at least dodgy. What exactly do you mean by dodgy? Someone who has felt lusts for children but may or may not have acted on them? Or something else?

Pps have asked what is different about someone wholly imagining a paedophiliac urge, from someone wholly imagining a bloodlust to murder, for example. You've rejected parallels with writers imagining murder. Is it true that you think there's something qualitatively different about "feeling like you want sex with a child" - vs "feeling like you want to hurt or kill people"? Acting on any of it would be to commit illegal, disgusting, harmful acts. But is the paedophile one "worst" for you - so far as to be literally unimaginable to anyone who isn't sort of "that way inclined"?

I think that's what people are challenging you on. Nobody says you are a paedophile. But we are wondering why it's ok to imagine genocide, stabbing someone in the eye or shooting them with a crossbow- without you saying "they must be dodgy". Can you explain?*

I believe I may be able to explain to you, since you had the courtesy to read what I said and, when you didn't quite understand something, ask, instead of assume, get it wrong and then insist I was stupid because you didn't understand me correctly to begin with.

I haven't quite rejected a comparison to murder. I believe all effective writers, to a greater or lesser extent, draw on emotions they have felt themselves when they write. I fail to see how they would create anything like a convincing persona if they didn't. A person who had never felt rage, for example, in my opinion, could never write (at least originally) about it in such a way as to convince me that they had.

So, if a person writes convincingly about the urge to murder someone, I believe they have, at some point, felt the urge to hurt someone.

But, and this is the crux, haven't we all? Anger is a universal human emotion. It doesn't shock me and I don't think there is anything 'dodgy' about it in the slightest. Similarly, I don't think there is anything dodgy about the emotions that precipitate extreme anger: jealousy or desire for revenge etc. These feelings are part of the usual spectrum of human emotion.

I feel similarly about graphic depictions of, for example, sadism (for example, like that you see in American Psycho). To me, psychopathy isn't within the normal spectrum of human emotion, but, to write convincingly in the persona of a psychopath would, as far as I am concerned, require someone to have experienced what it is like to inhabit such a mind. So, if someone wrote about the desire to carry out graphic acts of torture in such a way that made me think I was reading the true stream of consciousness of someone who wanted to do those things, I would call that person "dodgy".

Now, I don't think Bret Easton Ellis is particularly convincing. The prose lacks the evocative quality that made Nabokov's so celebrated. Therefore, I think it is perfectly possible to write about difficult topics without having experienced the associated emotions yourself. I simply don't think it is possible to do so in such a convincing manner as Nabokov manages.

I believe this is completely consistent with what I have said upthread, if you ignore the erroneous surmisings of other posters.

I also believe it is completely subjective and there is no "correct" answer one way or the other, so it baffles me that people have managed to get themselves so riled up about it.

Anger is a universal human emotion

I agree with this. I think the same can be said for sexual desire (with the exception of asexual people). My view is that the experience of sexual desire, and sexual acts, is something that can be transposed - otherwise you would never find, for instance, a female writer describing sex from the male point of view.

Nabokov could have been writing about desire for a woman, but put a child in her place. We never hear about the sexual acts from Lolita's perspective, other than it being shown she had been raped in a very violent manner the first time (she is bleeding and subdued) - Humbert is completely absorbed in his own fulfilment.

Nabokov could have been writing about desire for a woman, but put a child in her place.

I don't think so. I think it feels completely and totally different - unrecognisable even - from the depictions of lust between adults in almost all literature I have read. I don't believe Nabokov thought about a woman and then wrote: "But reality soon asserted itself. The bleached curl revealed its melanic root; the down turned to prickles on a shaved skin; the mobile moist mouth, no matter how I stuffed it with love, disclosed ignominiously its resemblance to the corresponding part in a treasured portrait of her toadlike dead mama; and presently, instead of a pale little gutter girl, Humbert Humbert had on his hands a large, puffy, big-breasted and practically brainless baba."

I don't. And nothing written here has come close to convincing me otherwise.

Pengggwyn In the passage you quote, Humbert is talking more about the erosion of desire than desire itself. I see that as quite a nasty little passage about not desiring a woman who is showing normal signs of ageing.

ScreamingValenta

I am not sure why you feel the need to explain that to me.

pen because you said, “I don’t believe Nabokov thought about a woman and then wrote :

Are you saying that even though he was “dodgy” (your words) he was also attracted to adult women in reality?

nolongersurprised

But if you retreat the overwhelming distance of one post, it's perfectly obvious that I am responding to a post that says he could have been experiencing/thinking about his desire for women when he wrote the novel, and simply transposing this desire onto a child-figure. The passage I quoted shows a quite different preoccupation.

I was clarifying that my point had been about depictions of lust, rather than depictions of waning desire, Pengggwn. I don't think it's unusual for men to be 'turned off' by signs of ageing, by which I mean the difference between a 20 year old and a 40 year old, rather than a child and an adult; that same 'turned off' sense could, however, be used by a writer to describe a younger age-curve than he, in real life, was sensible to.

I don't think that passage supports the argument that Nabokov shared Humbert's desires - though I stress, this is my personal view - I am not suggesting other perspectives are invalid.

I think Nabokov's skill - which couldn't have been done from the victim's point of view, is to draw us into the paedophile's mind. To reflect back on aspects of ourself which could commit acts of evil.
By being written from the point of view of the perpetrator we see inside his mind, and are forced to see his reasoning. And by it being such a shocking crime it shows a mirror to the ways the reader deludes themself about their motives and reasoning everyday.
It is pretty clear that you are supposed to find it shocking. And Humbert whilst trying to explain his actions knows that they are deeply shocking.

It is a brilliant book, but one best read when you are in a "pretty good place".

I am not sure why you feel the need to explain that to me.

Because that extract doesn't really make much sense in the context of your argument? Humbert, the narrator, is allowed to be horrible and dismissive about adult women (his descriptions of Charlotte Haze are so cruel), because it's completely consistent with his character. He is a paedophile. He justifies his desires by depicting young girls as these ethereal, semi-mythical creatures. He's mostly blind (or doesn't want to see) that they're real human beings, and that his actions are monstrously and directly harmful to them. But we see that, because Nabakov wants us to see it - because he's a skillful, empathetic writer who as (as Valenta says) managed to transpose universal human emotions (desire, selfishness, cruelty) into a very specific narrative.

I was clarifying that my point had been about depictions of lust, rather than depictions of waning desire, Pengggwn.

It is a depiction of his frustrated desire, using the figure of a fertile adult woman in her twenties to express his disgust at the adult female body. I don't believe we can read this and infer that he was thinking about his desire for adult women when he wrote about his character's desire for pre-pubescent girls. That is why I chose the passage.

Matcha

Yes, it makes sense in the context of my argument. My argument - in that instance - was that the narrative isn't a simple inversion of the writer's desire for adult women.

Back to the book : David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest) said that “good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” and that’s always made me think of Lolita and We Need to Talk About Kevin (and DFW’s short stories in particular and Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre with the mad woman in the attic). I think it’s always think it’s valuable to find a work of fiction disturbing and then work out why it is so.

I am responding to a post that says he could have been experiencing/thinking about his desire for women when he wrote the novel, and simply transposing this desire onto a child-figure. The passage I quoted shows a quite different preoccupation.

I think you are reading this very literally.

Nabakov can't be transposing his desire for a woman, because this passage shows he thinks adult women are ugly?

It doesn't actually matter if Nabakov worships or disdains women, and nothing Humbert says can be taken to prove Nabakov's feelings. Desire is a universal human emotion which can move in infinite directions. 'Lolita' shows what happens when an influential adult with a desire for children turns his attentions to an individual child, and absolutely destroys her.

Nobody said it was a simple inversion of an adult male's desire for adult females. Valenta said that 'experience of sexual desire, and sexual acts, is something that can be transposed', and therefore anyone who's experienced any sort of desire is able to write about it convincingly in any number of different situations, given the right technical talent.

Matcha

No, Matcha, I don't think it simplistically 'shows' anything to do with what the author desired or didn't desire, but I think it makes the notion that Nabokov was simply transposing his desire for adult women onto children extremely problematic and unlikely. That passage (like many others in the novel) could not have been written by somebody who had not given considerable thought to what, in the eyes of his narrator, revolted him about the adult female form in comparison to what evoked his desire about the form of a child.

Matcha

I disagree.

pengggyn

Have you ever considered that maybe he was just, you know, a really good writer?