Humbert is a paedophile. He abuses Lolita.

[Karen]

Petergiaquinta wrote: "You paying attention to your country, Karen?"

Like never before

[Mickey]

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Yes, what Dr. King said is absolutely relevant to what is happening today, so just hush now, Mickey. I was more tongue in cheek than anything, but I'll bite. Good people need to stand up to racists and Nazis today. Good people must not be silent as these foul cretins attempt to take their hatred into the mainstream. If the president won't speak up, then the rest of us should. If it takes a punch to the face of that moron like we saw in that great viral video a couple of weeks ago or me mocking that stooge on Goodreads for his Shirer review, then heck yeah.

But you just be quiet, Mickey, if you aren't up to it yourself. "

Again, you seem to have not read much of King's philosophy. He did not believe in punching people, and he certainly didn't think that punching people was a moral act. Some quotes I found in five minutes of searching the internet:

“The non-violent resistor not only avoids external, physical violence, but he avoids internal violence of spirit. He not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he refuses to hate him. And he stands with understanding, goodwill at all times.” (A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., p. 8)

“But I am also concerned about our moral uprightness and the health of our souls. Therefore I must oppose any attempt to gain our freedom by the methods of malice, hate, and violence that have characterized our oppressors. Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why psychiatrists say, “Love or perish.” Hate is too great a burden to bear.” (Making a Way Out of No Way: Martin Luther King’s Sermonic Proverbial Rhetoric, p. 404)

I'm not questioning King's relevance at all, I'm questioning your using his words to put forth positions that he would not have condoned and that were antithetical to his approach. I'm not sure why you chose to invoke his name when you are so unfamiliar with him. I've taught about Martin Luther King in elementary schools. Even small children are aware of his dedication to non-violence.

[Petergiaquinta]

Of course King didn't believe in punching people, you silly person!

That's what I believe in!

But hey, thanks for the Web search...

[Mickey]

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Mickey]

Note that the above quote is talking about "returning violence for violence", so it is talking about a scenario in which the other party has already been violent towards you and how you should not return it back to him. What we are talking about is somewhat different: initiating violence, which one would generally expect a higher bar to be set.

[Karen]

Mickey wrote: "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the..."

This writing by Dr. King is beautiful, true, and so wise.

[P.K.]

Hi Everyone, I'm new and perhaps I shouldn't jump into such a hot pot of stew. But, to get back to Nabakov and Lolita; I see I rated the book four stars. I read it only in the early sixties and my memory is not specific apart from enjoying the superb prose (which someone called 'sparmy, or was it spalmy?). But I would now rate it as many stars as are in the sky after reading a link; http://www.lolitasriddle.blogspot.com.... I think any reader might think the discussion superfluous after such an amazing treatise on Lolita. Remember, Nabokov wrote the book when homosexuality (to say nothing of paedophilia) was illegal. What a way to make a comment about lewis Carroll when the subject was sub-judice. About rape; my second book has two rapes, one of a woman and a gang-rape of a man; the above debate seems to only think it happens to women.
Nice to know you all.
PeeK

[Michael]

Just started reading this long article & will finish tomorrow.

Although I greatly admire Nabakov's works, I believe he was misguided in his views of Lewis Carroll, whom I adore.

A good deal of modern scholarship refutes the notion that Dodgson was a pedophile and had little interest in adult women. Here is a brief summary from Wikipedia:

"Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about this interest of Dodgson. Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time, and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.

Karoline Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties. She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of fourteen."

[Karen]

PK wrote;
"About rape; my second book has two rapes, one of a woman and a gang-rape of a man; the above debate seems to only think it happens to women."

Not true- if you go back and read previous pages there is discussion of rape happening to men and boys also.

[Michael]

P.K. wrote: "I think any reader might think the discussion superfluous after such an amazing treatise on Lolita. "

What exactly, P.K., do you find amazing about this article? Yes, we all know that Nabokov was fascinated with riddles and puzzles and veiled references to other books and authors, especially Carroll and Poe. We know that he was fascinated by the Alice stories and translated them into Russian. But to suggest that these hidden references somehow explain or unlock the meanings of this brilliant novel is beyond simplistic. Moreover, as I noted in yesterday's post, much of the modern scholarship on Charles Dodgson casts doubt on the conclusion that he was a pedophile with little or no romantic interest in adult women. So, I'd appreciate it if you would please explain what exactly you are getting at. And I'd hope that you read a good deal of this long thread before dismissing it as superfluous.

[Petergiaquinta]

I'm suspect of any claim that a work of literature or art possesses a secret message lurking beneath the surface available only to those with the special decoder ring...it sounds like The DaVinci Code. Or gematria. Or freemasonry.

Lolita is a rich text, beautifully written. I don't see how approaching it as a riddle to be solved adds any new layer of appreciation for the book.

[P.K.]

Michael.
I think the treatise was amazing as a piece of scholarship and detective work worthy of Bletchley Park. Child nudity in the Victorian era was not an open book as those apologists listed presume; it did not surace beyond private drawing rooms much until later photographers became bolder and society less oppressive and most observers now regard it as suppressed sexual preference.
As the treatise points out, there was a sudden split in the friendship of Dodgson and the Liddell family which does suggest that they became aware that Dogson's relationship with their daughters was not innocent - and given what we now know of how prevalent paedophilia is, one would be naive to think it was innocent.
Adoring someone's work does not endorse them as a person
I cannot understand how the treatise in question could possibly be considered simplistic. I think it is expressly relevant to Nabokov and his character.
I only wanted to offer the link as a point of interest, I didn't really want to get involved in the discussion beyond that because I find it has got nasty and personal, which I was led to believe is not acceptable on Bookreads. Ah, well; another layer of innocence is destroyed.

[Anne]

I just accidentally clicked back in here and am validated in my decision to leave this circular discussion that has aspects of an echo chamber of anti-feminism and hostility.

Bottom line, many people love the book because of how its written, some can't move past the content (me included). We can safely assume most families and famous milieus have members that do things we rightly as a society abhor.

I'm going to go read some David Sedaris and smile for a minute. :)

[Gary]

P.K. wrote: "As the treatise points out, there was a sudden split in the friendship of Dodgson and the Liddell family which does suggest that they became aware that Dogson's relationship with their daughters was not innocent - and given what we now know of how prevalent paedophilia is, one would be naive to think it was innocent."

It's been a while since I read his bio, but if memory serves, there was a split between Dodgson and the Liddell family, but that was followed up by a reconciliation, which doesn't sound like something that would happen if the family felt there was an inappropriate relationship between him and any of the girls.

[Michael]

I miss this thread!

Anyone still interested in discussing Lolita, perhaps my favorite work of fiction, or at least right up there with
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Mrs. Dolloway, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Catcher in the Rye, Salinger's Nine Short Stories, East of Eden, Cannery Row & Sweet Thursday, Flowers for Algernon, Solomon's Song, Love in the Time of Cholera, Italo Calvino's T-Zero and Cosmicomics, Florence Parry Heide's The Shrinking of Treehorn, Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, Belle Canto, and Saunder's Civilwarland in Deep Decline.

[Karen]

Michael wrote: "I miss this thread!

Anyone still interested in discussing Lolita, perhaps my favorite work of fiction, or at least right up there with
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, The Idio..."

Hi Michael, we could discuss whether or not HH is a loathsome charming character who hates himself

[Michael]

Sounds like a certain "leader" I've been hearing about, minus the charming part.

[Michael]

Although some readers clearly do not succumb to Humbert's charm, I find it fascinating how Nabakov is able--in my case--to keep me empathizing with HH and wanting to continue listening to his story no matter how repulsive his actions. I experienced the same sort of thing watching "Breaking Bad," never fully repudiating WW (Walter White) even as he grew increasingly vicious and depraved. It takes remarkably skilled writers to pull off this feat.

[Karen]

Michael wrote: "Although some readers clearly do not succumb to Humbert's charm, I find it fascinating how Nabakov is able--in my case--to keep me empathizing with HH and wanting to continue listening to his story..."
Can you think of another novel where the writer does this so masterfully regarding a loathsome character? A character that is drawn out as well as HH. As far as Walter White is concerned, I started to hate him toward the end. At first I was kinda rooting for him.

[Michael]

Thanks for humoring me, Karen!

None, I think, as masterfully as Nabokov.

I haven't read it yet, but some folks point to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Others cite Gone Girl, but I despised that novel and never finished it.

Other possible candidates include Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, although I don't think the Monster was a monster at all until humans made him so.

Highsmith's Ripley? Wilde's Dorian Gray? Shakespear's Richard III?

Are we alone here, Karen?

[Somerandom]

Michael wrote: "Thanks for humoring me, Karen!

None, I think, as masterfully as Nabokov.

I haven't read it yet, but some folks point to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Others cite Gone Girl, but I despised t..."

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky?
Perfume by Patrick Suskind?

[Michael]

Haven't read Perfume. Although I haven't reread Crime and Punishment in many years, I think you're right and we may have a winner!

[Karen]

Michael wrote: "Thanks for humoring me, Karen!

None, I think, as masterfully as Nabokov.

Somerandom is here too! I can't think of a book. I should read Crime and Punishment. I need to get off twitter and fb, and stop watching the news- I need to get back to reading and live in a world of oblivion for awhile.

[Michael]

Can't go wrong with Dostoevsky, Karen. I love C&P and Brothers Karamazov, but my favorite is The Idiot.

And for sheer entertainment and joy, you can't beat Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, one of the only sequels--in my opinion--that equals or surpasses the original novel.

My favorite novel of the 21st century is Ann Patchett's Bel Canto.

[Karen]

I need to look up Bel Canto then!

[Mickey]

I just started reading a very insightful book called A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter which is about a male reader who goes from being a fan of modernism to a fan of Jane Austen. An excerpt from that mentions something interesting about Nabokov and a new way to look at the way he wrote:

"Having worshipped at the altar of modernism, with its arrogant postures and lofty notions of philosophical significance, I believed that great literature had to be forbidding and esoteric: full of allusions that flaunted their own learning. dense with images and symbols that had to be pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. A book, to be really valuable, had to offer truths that seemed as recondite as metaphysics and as final as Scripture-had to promise to reveal the nature of language, or the self, or time. Modernism was superior art for superior people, or so the snobbiest of literary movements believed. No wonder I disdained the herd; I'd learned that pose from T.S. Eliot and Vladimir Nabokov, every line of whose work strutted its contempt for ordinary people. Emma refuted the notion that great literature must be difficult, and it also rebuked the human attitudes that that idea was designed to justify. I still loved modernism, I just no longer believed it was the only way to make art, and I certainly didn't think it was any way to live." (pg. 34)

[P.K.]

Interesting, Mickey. Long, long ago, when I read and talked about a lot of literature I was asked as to who was my favourite author. After some persistence from my questioner I relented and chose Jane Austen. That was when Nabokov had just arrived on the English language scene. I'm not sufficiently aware of how one would define Modernism but Lolita certainly hit me because of the power of its prose. But then, I suppose I chose Austen also because her prose was the perfect accumulation of decades of Engish literature; the sentences beautifully nuanced, the words easily understandable and the rythmn of them as regular as music. But Austen also added something else that a lot of female authors then and later had the time, desperation and intelligence to observe; the intricate jigsaw of environment, society and
genetic influence that flowed from their charactererisations. Nabokov, nor, probably, any fashionable modern writer, had that quality. He celebrated the freedom of expression that writers before him, Lawrence especially, had struggled to use and later writers used to excess. His prose was good enough to sustain the limitations of his ideas but he, and later writers, did nothing to disect the myriad parts of human behaviour the way Austen and earlier writers had.

[Mickey]

P.K. wrote: " I suppose I chose Austen also because her prose was the perfect accumulation of decades of Engish literature; the sentences beautifully nuanced, the words easily understandable and the rythmn of them as regular as music. But Austen also added something else that a lot of female authors then and later had the time, desperation and intelligence to observe; the intricate jigsaw of environment, society and
genetic influence that flowed from their charactererisations."

I am always a little wary when others place authors into categories based on their gender. Far from being chivalrous or egalitarian, I find it to be an insidious way of neutralizing them as individuals with particular talents and concerns. Jane Austen may have had time in that she was unmarried and childless, but other female writers of that century did not (such as Harriet Beecher Stowe). I don't know why women would be especially desperate. Some female writers were well-off financially, and some were not. Reducing Austen or any other female writer to a generic "woman writer" type is a disservice to that author and shows a failure to engage in her work.

An example of this was on this thread about two years ago. A poster in an off-hand comment claimed that Austen's works "challenged social standards". When asked to explain, he declined, claiming that an explanation would be off-topic. According to his online library, he had read only one of her books. Now, self-conscious name-dropping is not unheard of on this thread. This book in particular tends to attract people that indulge in this, and the possible reasons for that would actually be an interesting discussion in itself. The main point is that Austen's work was being reduced to a generic idea about "women's issues" based on her gender. There's no recognition of her as a writer with her own style, point of view, or ideas.

As far as ability with characterizations, I don't really see a uniform trend that would justify a discussion based on when authors wrote any more than on their gender. My personal top two (one male and one female) both wrote in the 19th century, but I can name a couple contemporary authors who, I would say, are outstanding in that aspect. It's not a skill that can be traced to a particular time or gender.

[Michael]

For me, Mickey, the key point of the passage you cited is: "I still loved modernism, I just no longer believed it was the only way to make art, and I certainly didn't think it was any way to live."

I certainly wouldn't argue with that statement and I see no reason to create some sort of hierarchy when it comes to writing styles. I love many of the 19th-century Realists such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Checkov. I also adore many Modernists such as Conrad, Woolf, Nabakov, and Beckett, as well as such Postmodernists as Borges, Italo Calvino, Vonnegut, Atwood, and Lessing, and Magical Realists like Garcia Marquez, Cortazar, Murakami, and Isabel Allende. And although I enjoy intellectually challenging novels such as Lolita, Gravity's Rainbow, and The Name of the Rose, I also love simply told tales such as Cannery Row & Sweet Thursday, and the stories of Agatha Christie, Elmore Leonard, and Alexander McCall Smith. Is it helpful to create a hierarchy or to dismiss certain writing styles?

[Mickey]

Michael wrote: "For me, Mickey, the key point of the passage you cited is: "I still loved modernism, I just no longer believed it was the only way to make art, and I certainly didn't think it was any way to live."..."

Having had more time and experience with the author that I cited, I don't think he meant it to be quite as "pageant-y" as you apparently took it to be. From what I've read (and I'm about 100 pages in), the part "I certainly didn't think it was any way to live" was meant as a particular indictment of a certain way of looking at the world. The book is a kind of memoir about growing out of the self-assurance and arrogance of young adulthood and using the examples in Jane Austen's work to do it. There's a definite emphasis on people making mistakes and learning from them much as Austen's heroines do. The failure of Nabokov to fit into this particular framework is not necessarily meant to be a damning dismissal of him.

[P.K.]

Mickey wrote: "P.K. wrote: " I suppose I chose Austen also because her prose was the perfect accumulation of decades of Engish literature; the sentences beautifully nuanced, the words easily understandable and th..."

[P.K.]

I was not trying to label Austen in any way apart from her talent. My reference to her being female was that females of her generation and for one hundred years afterwards were restricted in their experiences by not being able to work or to travel alone. Think of the Brontes; they were prisoners of their environment and writing was an escape for their considerable talents. But if I had wanted to partmentalise female/male writers I could have a decent stab at it.
Somewhere in these threads we had an interesting chat about it and I cited an incident during a reading in a writers group where opinion separated, male/female. It was also a propos of there being a predominence of female agents and, as someone pointed out, a disproportianate majority of female readers on goodreads.
So, whilst not wishing to apply female labels to Austen I do think that someone might do so ; like my niece who has a doctorate in women in society and specialises in teaching about women in literature. So there is mileage there.

[Mickey]

P.K. wrote: " My reference to her being female was that females of her generation and for one hundred years afterwards were restricted in their experiences by not being able to work or to travel alone...But if I had wanted to partmentalise female/male writers I could have a decent stab at it. "

This first part is historically inaccurate. Women have worked and traveled throughout history.

Given that, I would like to hear a "decent stab" made at "partmentalising" male/female writers. Would this be different based on time (Victorian times vs modern) or is your argument going to be about biological differences between the two groups?

[P.K.]

No arguments; just comments

[Michael]

I'm watching the incredible movie, Captain Fantastic. This scene, in which Ben (Viggo Mortensen) asks his teenage daughter, Vespyr (Annalise Bosso), what she thinks of Lolita, contains what may be the most concise analysis I've encountered of why the novel is both so disturbing and so brilliant.

Now past the city and into the Cascade Mountains south of
Portland. Vespyr looks up from her book.

VESPYR
What's a "bordello?"

Ben looks over to see Vespyr reading "Lolita," by Vladimir
Nabokov.

BEN
A whorehouse.

VESPYR
Oh.

BEN
I didn't assign that book.

VESPYR
I'm skipping ahead.

BEN
And?

VESPYR
It's interesting.

BODEVAN
Illegal word!

ZAJA
Dad! Vesp said "interesting!"

NAI
Dad! She said "interesting!"

BEN
"Interesting" is a non-word. You
know you're never allowed to use
it. Be specific.

VESPYR
It's... disturbing.

BEN
More specific.

VESPYR
Can I just read?!

BEN
After you answer the question.

VESPYR
There's this old man. Who loves
this girl. But she's only -

BEN
That's the plot. That wasn't the
question.

Vespyr pauses, considering how to articulate her feelings
about the book.

VESPYR
Because it's written from his
perspective, you sort of understand
and sympathize with him. Which is
sort of amazing. Because he's
basically a child molester. But his
love for her is beautiful. But it's
also kind of a trick, because it's
so wrong. He's old and he basically
rapes her. So it makes me feel....
I hate him and I feel sorry for
him. At the same time.

Ben smiles.

BEN
Well done.

Vespyr rolls her eyes and goes back to her book.

[Christi]

Fatin wrote: "I don't understand HOW anybody cannot see that he does rape Lolita. Yes, she's attracted to him, yes she makes moves on him. She's a twelve year old! In the beginning of the book, she's compared hi..."

You're absolutely correct. Nabokov himself said he hated Humbert, who is a silly, obnoxious vain narcissist. The point of this book is NOT to romanticize pedos...people who take it that way either aren't very smart, haven't taken any real literature classes, or have only seen the movies and only pretend to have read the book (I find this last thing happens a lot with Wuthering Heights, too)....Lolita is a tragic comedy, and it's also an abstract representation of Europe "The Old World" (Humbert) and the US in the mid-20th century (Lolita). I love Lolita. It's one of my favorite novels, I took notice of it because Lana del Rey praised it so extensively.

[Lucia]

For those who haven't come across it, I'd like to recommend James Phelan's Living to Tell About It, which contains a great chapter on Nabokov's Lolita. Closely analyzing Humbert's narrative unreliability, Phelan argues that Humbert uses an "aesthetic control" to manipulate not only Dolores and other characters, but also readers.
Firstly, there is no doubt Humbert is guilty of bullying another person (let alone a recently orphaned child) into providing him with sexual favours in exchange for gifts, money and a false feeling of security, of having a home and family to which the feared alternative would be an orphanage. Whether this is a rape, abduction or child prostitution, is subject to much debate. Humbert's guilt lies in ruining another person's freedom for the sake of expanding his own.
Phelan's criticism lies in asserting that Humbert manipulates other characters as well as readers through his powerful aesthetic control -- an immense talent in literary narration. At first glance, we might be tempted to forgive Humbert or at least pay attention to his testimony thanks to his compelling narrative-- something we might skip altogether were he not such a skillful narrator. Equally, we might find it difficult to reconcile his beautiful sophisticated writing style with his abominable acts, twisted sexuality and an outrageous incapacity to see the breadth of its harmful consequences.
Below is a passage that just came to my mind as a good example of Humbert's verbal manipulation on Dolores. She is reading aloud a magazine article with advice for children in a case of abduction:

[...] Don't play around public toilets. Don't take candy or rides from strangers. If picked up, mark down the license of the car."
"...and the brand of the candy," I volunteered.
She went on, her cheek (recedent) against mine (pursuant); and this was a good day, mark, O reader!
"If you don't have a pencil, but are old enough to read--"
"We," I quip-quoted, "medieval mariners, have placed in this bottle--"
"If," she repeated, "you don't have a pencil, but are old enough to read and write--this is what the guy means, isn't it, you dope--scratch the number somehow on the roadside."
"With your little claws, Lolita."
(p. 189: Penguin Essentials, 2011)

This passage is an apt example of how Humbert exercises what Phelan dubbed "aesthetic control" over Dolores, who, slowly realizing what is really going on between the two of them, attempts perhaps at revealing she is aware of her mistreatment in Humbert's hands. Humbert clearly dominates the situation thanks to his skillful verbal control.

Living to Tell about It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration

[Mickey]

I don't know if I agree. The magazine article itself is not a good summary of the situation Lolita finds herself in. I wouldn't say that she is using it to show similarities in her situation and the scenario shown in the magazine article (abduction by a stranger). If anything, isn't it showing the lack of solutions offered for young people who find themselves manipulated by acquaintances who are also pedophiles? Lolita wasn't offered candy by a man in a strange car, so this specific advice isn't applicable. She's being abused by her stepfather.

As far as the idea that this example shows Humbert excelling at narrative control, I actually think that this particular time (I can't look it up at the moment, so I'm just going by your excerpt) shows one of the few times that we actually hear Lolita speak. Generally, her words are paraphrased and reworked into a very Humbertian style. Off the top of my head, I can remember a scenario when Lolita complains that she was "as fresh as a daisy" before Humbert took her away and there was also the fancy narration of her time at camp with the teenaged boy (a scene in which Humbert was not even present), but when we hear Lolita speak at the end of the book during the visit when she is an adult, she speaks in slang and cliches. I remember being shocked the first time I read it by how it wasn't until the very end that I got a sense of her speech patterns. I would say that a better example of her being hijacked is all the lack of speaking times instead of one of the few times that she's actually quoted.

[Mickey]

Thinking it over, I would even say that Humbert's decision to quote her directly in this incident is to emphasize her complicity. They're seen as joint partners in the conversation as well as the crime, and this is why he upends his usual habit of paraphrasing her. If you were to try this same excerpt with him paraphrasing her parts, it puts less emphasis on her contribution. This is definitely an example of manipulating the content, but it is not a good example of him being dominant. He is more dominant and she is less present when he insists on paraphrasing her (which is most of the time). I think his strategy here is to safely quote her (and for the majority of the conversation, she isn't expressing her own thoughts but reading from a magazine) to show a give and take and establish a parity between the two.

[Lucia]

Hi Mickey, as you correctly remarked, Humbert indeed leaves little space for Dolores (I prefer the official name, the nickname Lolita bears too much Humbert in it), effacing her presence, repressing her dignity and autonomy as a human being and ignoring her emotions and thoughts. This, however, changes in ‘Part Two’ of the novel, in which Humbert undergoes a gradual change of heart and ends up seemingly regretting the harm he had done Dolores. It is in ‘Part Two’ that Dolores’s voice and perspective start to sneak in to Humbert’s previously impenetrable narrative, some of the events described purely from Humbert’s perspective in the first part being sort of rewritten/renarrated as though from her point of view. Slowly, we begin to notice that Humbert’s convictions that Dolores was complicit in their relations begin to give in to the gradual realization of his guilt.
The quoted passage is from ‘Part Two’ and is an explicit example of Humbert’s overwhelming aesthetic control over Dolores, who begins to question his intentions. She is already able to link the article’s subject to Humbert’s treatment of her and label it a criminal activity. Also, she becomes protective of herself, her cheek being “recedent” against Humbert’s physical advances.
I may be biased, having researched Lolita from a narratological point of view. However, I believe I can safely assert that Nabokov was not a social campaigner fighting against child abuse, but he was a brilliant creative author of narrative masterpieces. If Lolita raises awareness of these issues happening in real life, it’s great. These things do take place and we should never cease to fight against them. But it is not the primary purpose of the novel. Lolita is a piece of creative writing, meant to be, first and foremost, read as a narrational experiment—how far can Humbert go whilst skillfully manipulating readers’ sympathies and how many readers will find themselves seduced by the compelling beauty and brilliance of his narrative to the point of willingness to forgive his dastardly deeds and unblushing lack of morality?

[Mickey]

Lucia wrote: "Hi Mickey, as you correctly remarked, Humbert indeed leaves little space for Dolores (I prefer the official name, the nickname Lolita bears too much Humbert in it), effacing her presence, repressing her dignity and autonomy as a human being and ignoring her emotions and thoughts."

Why not call her Dolly then? This is how she refers to herself as an adult. The name Dolores was given to her by someone she didn't have a stellar relationship with.

[Michael]

Lucia wrote: "Hi Mickey, as you correctly remarked, Humbert indeed leaves little space for Dolores (I prefer the official name, the nickname Lolita bears too much Humbert in it), effacing her presence, repressin..."

I agree completely, Lucia. Nabokov is neither condoning child abuse, as some readers suggest, nor advocating against it, although Humbert does gradually come to realize the profound damage he has inflicted on Dolores. Lolita is a story that delights in the power of language and the magical way in which literature can seduce readers into entering a fictional world and induce sympathy even for characters who are beyond the pale. One can see the same dynamic at work in some of the best television shows, such as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and William Macy's portrayal of Frank Gallagher in Shameless.

[Mickey]

Lucia wrote: "This, however, changes in ‘Part Two’ of the novel, in which Humbert undergoes a gradual change of heart and ends up seemingly regretting the harm he had done Dolores. It is in ‘Part Two’ that Dolores’s voice and perspective start to sneak in to Humbert’s previously impenetrable narrative, some of the events described purely from Humbert’s perspective in the first part being sort of rewritten/renarrated as though from her point of view. Slowly, we begin to notice that Humbert’s convictions that Dolores was complicit in their relations begin to give in to the gradual realization of his guilt.
The quoted passage is from ‘Part Two’ and is an explicit example of Humbert’s overwhelming aesthetic control over Dolores, who begins to question his intentions. She is already able to link the article’s subject to Humbert’s treatment of her and label it a criminal activity. Also, she becomes protective of herself, her cheek being “recedent” against Humbert’s physical advances."

Part One ends with Humbert revealing to Lolita that her mother is dead, so it is at the start of their 'relationship'. I don't see the break between the two parts to being a softening of the abuse. On the contrary, the bulk of the abuse happens in Part Two.

My problem with the excerpt was that it was not characteristic of the way he manipulated the audience through the presentation of the material, so it was not a good example. He changed tactics there in order to show her as a joint participant. She does not make a "link between the article's subject to Humbert's treatment of her" at least in that excerpt. The article deals only with abduction by strangers.

I agree about the seduction of the reader being the likely goal of Nabokov's. I think those that are immersed in the idea of aesthetics are those who are the most easily duped. Those readers who have a stronger moral center would be most likely to see through the manipulations.

[Mickey]

Michael wrote: "Lolita is a story that delights in the power of language and the magical way in which literature can seduce readers into entering a fictional world and induce sympathy even for characters who are beyond the pale. One can see the same dynamic at work in some of the best television shows, such as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and William Macy's portrayal of Frank Gallagher in Shameless."

Is inducing sympathy for characters who are "beyond the pale" really so difficult? I'm beginning to get a sense that it doesn't really take much skill and that people will readily follow along without a lot of fuss. I'm not familiar with Shameless, but I am a fan of both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. I would say that all that's needed is to make them a main character, and we'll excuse a lot. The main character becomes a stand in for the viewer and people can generally find excuses for their own behavior.

I'm not sure if it was in this thread or another, but I talked about the crop of anti-heroes as main characters in recent tv shows and how that changed the story (or didn't) and got a silly answer back about how I was saying that such characters were undesirable, which was not my point at all. So hopefully, this time around there could be a more interesting exchange.

[Arthur]

Humbert Humbert certainly qualifies as a Pedophile, though he is largely preoccupied with just the one girl, Dolores because she reminds him strongly of a childhood sweetheart. His infatuation drives him helplessly to his destruction. He begins to lose respect for Dolores when he realizes that she is playing cat and mouse with him, and he is also haunted by the mysterious Qullty who is a more outright and general kind of child molester. He teases Humbert with a sense of inadequacy for not giving way fully to his inner demons as he (Quilty) has. That is why Humbert kills Quilty and that is the main crime he is charged with. Humbert's behaviour is inexcusable but he is not a monster in the ame way Quilty is. That the book generates discussion on the sensitive subject actually adds to its literary importance.

Arthur Chappell

[Innn]

@Fatin
“And please, please do not forget that he's an unreliable narrator! You can't believe everything he says, he's twisting it to suit himself,”

but this is exactly what you did. Why would the opposite of what he is telling be the truth? Nabokov’ s genius in action

[Thijs]

Of course it is rape. Not very much of a discussion if you ask me. The thing that confuses me very much, is that some people call Nabokov a pedophile, because he had the imagination to write this novel. I understand how some people are grossed out by this book, but how does make the author a pedophile? Authors of horror novels/thrillers, aren't by definition serial killers either right?

I love Lolita for being such a horribly confronting novel. I never really sided with Humbert, but Nabokov manages to make you understand the love Humbert has for Lolita. Sometimes it just feels like you're reading a romantic novel, untill you realize that he's "dating" a twelve year old girl. Such a great balance on that line between some sort of sympathy and revolt.

[maryanne]

Humber wrote Lolita in 1953 and unfortunatly, in those days any child molester could write his fancy to his heart's content. All kinds of child abuse was blamed on the child by family and the public. How sad, the supposidly christchian churches (who knew all about child abuse, via confession etc), did nothing to open the public's eyes, to tell everybody that child abuse distroyed the child for life. All christian priests and the head of churches had all kinds of power for hundred of years, therefore they could have opened everbodies eyes even the law a thousand years ago when the catholic church ruled over kings.

[Michael]

Everyone who is intrigued and/or confused by this novel should check out Lance Olsen's Lolita: A Janus Text

My brief review:
"Lance Olsen has written a masterful analysis of Nabokov's Lolita, a must read for anyone who is intrigued by this remarkable novel, considered by many authors to be the greatest work of the 20th century. I have read multiple books on the subject, and none of them exhibit the insight, depth of inquiry, or comprehensive analysis found in this volume. Lolita is one of my top-four novels (along with Huckleberry Finn, The Idiot, and East of Eden) and this book gave me a much deeper understanding of what makes it such a work of genius."

[Emma]

Fatin wrote: "macgregor wrote: "Fatin wrote: "But for me rape is a more serious offence than murder."

What I mean by that is, I would rather be murdered than raped...."
Think about that statement. Think it through.
You think there's no life after rape? You are assuming that the evil, vile, and horrifically violent act of rape--the result of a rapist's desire and power--automatically makes the entire future of the victim/survivor more bad than good. That it robs they survivor of all they once had to offer and enjoy. That the rapist--by virtue of how terrible their crime is--has the power to ruin another human being. That, therefore, the rapist is intrinsically more powerful than the one raped--not just in the moment of the crime, but forever after.

What about human resilience? What about healing? What about rebuilding? What about our spirits--our souls? What do you make of all the many, many people, mostly women--I among them--who have been raped? You think our lives are "ruined?" That WE are ruined? Who are you to assume such a thing--or to even think you have a right to imagine what it *might* be like and publicly declare it? Do you know how much damage that could do someone vulnerable?

I see you are careful to say that you are speaking of yourself; but there are generalized assumptions made in your statements. That rape will de facto nullify one's worth, their power, their capacity for joy and ability to lead a worthwhile life. You are assuming that because rape is terrible, it ruins the victim. Rape is an attempt to erase the victim. You are giving all the power to the rapist. You are assuming they automatically succeed.

Rape can have any number of effects on the victim/survivor. For most of us, rebuilding our sense of safety, and to varying degrees our sense of self, is a massive and harrowing process. I can say for myself that I'll never be the same--but that is true of, say, enduring a natural disaster, getting hit by a car, falling in love, having a child--any major life event. "I'll never be the same" does not mean "I have been erase" or "I am less of a person/my life is less worthwhile than before the rape."

Unlike all of those, rape is an act of violence that attempts to negative/destroy our personhood. It attempts to erase us by saying that our rights and desires and safety and wholeness and humanity don't count; that all that matters is the desires and need for power of the rapist.

Your statement that "rape is worse than murder" GIVES all that the rapist tries to take away to him (or her). You are saying that the annihilation of personhood *symbolized* and *enacted* by rape is REAL, and it is PERMANENT. That the person whose been raped has no way to maintain or reclaim her or his personhood. That life is over after rape--and that because, still, the heart keeps beating, any life that takes place after being rapes is "worse than death." That a woman is worth nothing more than her sexual purity, in some sense, and that sexual violation--an attack on that purity--is ruinous to her on a fundamental level. That life after rape is more torture than beauty, more suffering than joy; that the grief and pain and fear that follow rape cannot lessen or cannot be endured and exist alongside great joy and success in all ways.

Worst of all, you are saying that when someone has been raped, they are no longer worthwhile as a human being--that it would be better off if they'd been killed. You believe that so deeply that you'd wish death for yourself.

I encourage you to dig deep. To see that you are so much more than whatever a rapist can take from you. We all are.

I have a feeling you have not thought this through very much. It is really a terribly irresponsible and callus act to make such a statement, especially in a public forum. On the off chance--one that I really really doubt--that you have survived rape, I am very sorry that you feel how you do, but it does not apply universally.

I am a rape victim and survivor whose life was worthwhile before my rape. My life was worthwhile during my rape. And it's still worthwhile afterwards. I can tell you my accomplishments or the deep joys I experience and the love that defines me and my life. I could tell you all that I've done to live with what happened, in a meaningful way--and to thrive.

But that is irrelevant. It is not the point. Even those of us who have not achieved in the ways the society deems "worthy" have a right to live, to love themselves, to nurture and celebrate who they are, to find shelter after the storm.

For those still reeling, for those in great pain who cannot see how life can ever be worthwhile again, there is hope. You are NOT ruined. Your life is not ruined. What has been done to you is not your fault. Nobody else made you who you are; and nobody has the power to undo you. You remain. You always will. You may feel shattered, broken, scarred. You may feel ruined. You may even feel you wish you hadn't survived. These feelings are all normal, all understandable. I have felt them all. But trust me when I say that nobody can ruin you. Your future is yours. There truly is hope. Every spirit contains hope--even in the darkest hour. That includes you, your spirit--something no act, however cruel and horrible, can crush.

Something awful and vile has been done to you, but regardless of how terrifying and painful life is right now, it is the rapist who is ruined by their actions. Not you. You did not do that. You did not do that. It was not your fault. Nobody can take you away from you. Nobody can ruin you--not even if you feel that have.

Rape will change us; but the changes we experience will also change. Paralyzing fear may become rage; rage may become depression; depression may become sadness and grief; grief may lead the way to reclaiming ways to find new ways of being you--rerooting your feet into the here and now--finding pieces of yourself you recognize, building new strengths, connecting to passions, hopes--building a life in the "after." And there is a life here. It is yours.

I am a rape victim. My life is worth living--and if you've been raped or assaulted, you too are worthy of life and all the best things it has to offer. I promise.