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May 02
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Scot
read and liked
M.C.'s
review of Lolita (Penguin Modern Classics):
"Child, trace the lobes of my ears with your index and let rest of you collapse upon me as tides do roll in on the shores. Prance about and roll your eyes at the world as if all the rest mattered not. Be free. Be pure. Be Lolita.
Such a thought mig...more
Child, trace the lobes of my ears with your index and let rest of you collapse upon me as tides do roll in on the shores. Prance about and roll your eyes at the world as if all the rest mattered not. Be free. Be pure. Be Lolita.
Such a thought might have crossed the polarized mind of Humbert Humbert, the rhetorical romantic who narrates Nabokov's Lolita. Throughout the course of the novel, Humbert was ailed by his romantic interests in adolescent girls-- the infamous "nymphets." Shackled by the age difference between him and his nymphets, Humbert was suspended from loving in the very matter that he defined as love and compelled to refrain from all except from the smuggling of narrow glances at the flash of some limb or smile of an untainted beauty. Though of course, this, Humbert's world, was forever inverted when he met Lolita.
It fascinated me so to comprehend the tale of Humbert Humbert. I find it interesting to wonder at how perhaps Lolita was but an imagination of Humbert-- his whole relationship with her nothing more than a mental drama. Even when Lolita was absent, her presence seem to be no less dominate to Humbert--her scent, her laughter, the numbing feel at the touch of clammy paws. Even when Lolita aged, she to Humbert remained almost unchanged--immortal in her nymphet glamor.
Why is it that lovers often attempt to lash down their love as if they would one morning morph into some crow and fly off? Are lovers in actuality some fowl that never remains in one condition for two long? Humbert desperately tried to bound Lolita, in some way, to him--through the lure of money, sexual pleasure, and other sorts of bribes. Though at the end, it seems that he has clumsily slipped in his chase for Lolita, who would not have ran away if he had not chased her first. Perhaps Humbert's failure was that his romantic passion for Lolita was so entwined with his love for her as a father that he failed to provide either when he tried to supply both at once.
Humbert lived through a series of failed romances--childhood lover having passed away in a breeze, a divorce with the wife whom he thought would bring relief for his ailing desire for nymphets, the prostitutes who knew of the physicality of love but not its art, and the numerous nymphets who would mock him and mistake his love for that of a parental figure. Is this the mix that nourishes a pedophile or that of a hopeless romantic? ...less
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February 21
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Scot
added:
Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition (Paperback)
by Umberto Eco, Alastair McEwen
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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February 20
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Scot
gave
to:
People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)
by Howard Zinn
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot said:
"A must read for every person who can read.
"
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Scot
gave
to:
Independence Day (Paperback)
by Richard Ford
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot said:
"Best book told from the perspective of a real estate agent I've read.
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Scot
gave
to:
The Corrections (Hardcover)
by Jonathan Franzen
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot said:
"Thought this book would be great when I bought it..turned out only to be good...which is fine
"
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Scot
gave
to:
The Second World War (Six Volume Boxed Set)
by Winston S. Churchill, John Keegan
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in January, 2007
Scot said:
"Even though Churchill is in love with the numerics of war (tonage of ships, material & arms, troops, etc.) These books have fascinating details, primary documents like memo's and such and interesting stories about Churchill's relationships with ...more
Even though Churchill is in love with the numerics of war (tonage of ships, material & arms, troops, etc.) These books have fascinating details, primary documents like memo's and such and interesting stories about Churchill's relationships with Roosevelt and Stalin, etc.. and it's history written from one of the participants(sometimes maybe it's myopic and self aggrandizing, but that's to be expected to some extent) and it reads like he speaks, which, of course, is wonderfully insightful and funny....less
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Scot
gave
to:
The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, and Selected Stories (Penguin Classics)
by Nikolai V. Gogol
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot said:
"If you don't like these stories then I just don't know what to say about that...
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Scot
gave
to:
Dead Souls: A Novel (Paperback)
by Nikolai V. Gogol
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot
gave
to:
The Overcoat and Other Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Nikolai V. Gogol
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scot
gave
to:
NABOKOVS DOZEN (Anchor Literary Library)
by Vladimir Nabokov
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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