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.

There are biographical arguments with evidence that Nabokov may have had some such thoughts without acting on them, but it's also a massive stretch to say that all authors who write about dark characters "have something wrong with them".

I think it shows considerable fortitude to be able to write a whole novel from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator. I find it one thing to be able to understand and suggest explanations for how people act, but quite different (a headfuck) to be immersed in writing creatively at length in first person or close third about a disturbed character.

JacquesHammer

In Wuthering Heights? I agree, up to a point. But I also believe, in order to write convincingly about those things, that she must have significant empathy with those emotions, which means she experienced some of them.

One could say that Agatha Christie must have had criminal impulses to write so many novels about crime.

Well said, Matcha. Nabokov is only a paedophile if Bram Stoker is a vampire and JRR Tolkien is a hobbit, for heaven's sake. My latest novel is about a stalker who camps out outside the house of her object of affection and writes to him three times a day. I make shit up.

but it's also a massive stretch to say that all authors who write about dark characters "have something wrong with them".

Which isn't what I said. I believe the particular style of Nabokov's writing - the highly personal, open and 'realistic' nature of the narrative - shows a level of empathy that he couldn't invent from nothing. I believe the same of someone writing in that style about extreme acts of sadism. I don't believe the same about someone writing about any 'dark character'.

Ah! No sense of humour required!! Sorry, forgot it was Sunday!

Electrascoffee

Not so. She doesn't write as the sociopathic criminal. She writes as the investigator/third party/sidekick etc. That does not require the same investment in the consciousness of the criminal. And if it did, well, many people have felt the impulse to kill. I wouldn't be shocked by that.

I agree it's a classic, and it is fascinating to watch how Humbert tries to narrate/justify his actions.
That said, it sucks. Humbert is an arrogant prick, it's so slow it's like trying to recite the Odyssey in its entirety while wearing an old fashioned divers suit running through trecal which has been poured atop quick sand in a tank they've then placed atop an earthquake machine and he seems like the kind of weirdo who thinks he's charming but is just like a twat but you can't get away from him because you're stuck in the corner of a pub with him and you're flashing the SOS signal with and means you can but no one notices you and your stuck with the prick and yes I know that's the point, it still sucks.

CountessCon

Hobbits and vampires aren't real. Tolkien can't have been a hobbit, nor Stoker a vampire. Nabokov could very easily have been a predator.

Which film, @Electrascoffee? I think Peter Sellers ruined the 1962 Kubrick version but I quite liked the 1997 Lyne movie. I haven't read the book, though, so I can't really comment on it. Along with Nabokov's Pale Fire it's on a very long list of books I want to get around to reading.

In Wuthering Heights?

Not just in WH but across her poetry.

I agree, up to a point. But I also believe, in order to write convincingly about those things, that she must have significant empathy with those emotions, which means she experienced some of them

Characterwise I think it unlikely.

I read Lolita in my teens way back in the 60's.

I was completely taken in by Humbert and thought of him as a tragic lover duped by a devil child.

This may explain my awful experiences with much older men . Now I see him as a self deluded charming child molester trying to justify his perversion. Back then I mistakenly thought she led him on and it was quite a shock when I realised the truth

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is essentially RPG fiction from an imaginary world invented by her and her sisters and brother when they were children, full of violent emotions, murders, betrayals.

As children, their first forays into writing were writing stories and poems and mini-newspapers set in that world. To a greater or lesser extent, they all kept playing the games, separately or together, into adulthood, until Branwell became an addict and Charlotte guilted herself out of her obsession, then fell in love with a real married man. It always seems to me that Anne went along with it as long as she did purely for Emily's sake -- there's a reference in a birthday paper to to the two of them, in their 20s, playing characters escaping from imaginary bad guys in a war while on a long walk.

Which is a long way round of saying that WH, like most of EB's poetry, is essentially role-playing fiction, based on an imaginary world she'd been living in in her head for most of her life. She just changed the names and placenames from things like Julius Brenzaida to plausibly real-life Yorkshire ones. Apart from the fact that she was a genius, it's not a million miles from adding to the canon of a fandom. It doesn't mean that her own idea of a cheery good time was eloping with a brute who hung your pet spaniel on the way, or that she fantasised about digging up her dead beloved's grave.

there's a reference in a birthday paper to to the two of them, in their 20s, playing characters escaping from imaginary bad guys in a war while on a long walk

Indeed. They went away for a short break and spent much of the break "playing" at being some of their characters.

Well, this is where I am on this issue.

And I don't think ludicrous comparisons to creatures that don't require psychological realism (hobbits, vampires, slasher killers) help. It isn't the same exercise, to place yourself in the shoes of an immortal creature that consumes the blood of virgins, because there isn't any such thing. You can write what you want and shape the genre. An abuser is a real thing.

JacquesHammer

Why?

Why?

Which bit?

But imagination is imagination. It gets fed by things we see, hear, read, etc. I don't think it is ludicrous to make those comparisons, even if slightly tongue in cheek.

The imagination that constructs alternative realities is equally capable of constructing dystopian horrors. That ability to disconnect from our every day selves and construct alternative realities is one of the things that makes us sentient, human beings.

Characterwise I think it unlikely.

Characterwise I think it unlikely

Extensive research.

Pengggwn, I find your accusations that Nabokov is (at a minimum) a latent pedophile rather distasteful and crass. That is a really shitty thing to say about somebody without any evidence.

Previous posters are right, there is absolutely no need for a writer to be something or having personally experienced something that he or she is writing about. That's what distinguishes a good writer from a bad one - uncommonly vivid imagination and uncommonly strong emotional sensitivities, and of course an ability to put all this into words.

I remember reading somewhere, not sure if it's true and it was a while ago, that Nabakov said something about writing Lolita and some of other works in part to show what works and topics can go on the shelves if written about in a certain way. As already said, the sex/rape parts are not really talked about in the sort of detail that would bring out the censors or widespread condemnation as filth but the rape of a child still happens.

It's been a while since I've read it, I recall one part where Humbert is complaining that she isn't bringing home friends or a particular 'nymphette' friend anymore. As a child abuse survivor, I remember strongly not wanting to bring people I know in the house even before I really had words to explain why, and strongly connected with that as a coping and survival mechanism, even if it isn't the abused person's own it can feel like doing something when usually feeling helpless.

Pengggwn, I find your accusations that Nabokov is (at a minimum) a latent pedophile rather distasteful and crass. That is a really shitty thing to say about somebody without any evidence.

And I find his book rather distasteful and crass. You don't get to put stuff like that out there without people asking that question. I don't give a shit about 'evidence'; this isn't a court.

JacquesHammer

Oh right - helpful.