Lolita

[Piscivore]

Anybody else who has read this get bored as [Rule 8] during the middle third?

[LibraryLady]

Huh?

[Piscivore]

Lolita, by Nabakov. I found the middle third of the book really dry and rambling, without the passion that possesed Humbert at the beginning. He keeps saying he's still infatuated by Lo, but I don't feel it.

[LibraryLady]

Ah! I wasn't sure if you were referring to the movie, the book, or someone you know named Lolita.

It's been a long time since I've read it, but I remember being pretty much entranced the whole way through. The most chilling line I remember is when he first rapes her and says that she responds to his passion, because, "She had no choice."

[Piscivore]

You mean at the Enchanted Hunter Hotel?

[clarsct]

Wait.

Pisci says he got bored in the middle third of lolita.

LL asks if Lolita is a person he knows?:eek:

Wouldn't it be KNEW?

[LibraryLady]

Originally posted by clarsct
Wait.

Pisci says he got bored in the middle third of lolita.

LL asks if Lolita is a person he knows?:eek:

Wouldn't it be KNEW?

Finally. Someone got it.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by LibraryLady
Finally. Someone got it.

I got it, but there are laws against self-incrimin... I mean, I was just too, um... sophisticated to say anything. Yes, that's it.

*whistle*

:)

[Alex DeLarge]

Originally posted by Piscivore
Anybody else who has read this get bored as [Rule 8] during the middle third?

Haven't got there yet.

[tim]

I tried very hard to read Lolita some years ago, but couldn't get into it. But then I thought James Joyce was rubbish, so what do I know?

[7th sextile]

I think Sting had the same problem,so much so that every time he sings 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' he forgets the title
and just calls it "that book by Nabakov"...

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by 7th sextile
I think Sting had the same problem,so much so that every time he sings 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' he forgets the title
and just calls it "that book by Nabakov"...

:D

[epepke]

Originally posted by 7th sextile
I think Sting had the same problem,so much so that every time he sings 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' he forgets the title
and just calls it "that book by Nabakov"...

Heh. Well, of course it could be Ada. Lolita is just the most popular of his it-can't-be-pedophilia-because-it's-literature books.

[Ducky]

Originally posted by epepke
Heh. Well, of course it could be Ada. Lolita is just the most popular of his it-can't-be-pedophilia-because-it's-literature books.


I recently had a discussion about that, I'll try to find the link.

We came to the consensus that it could have been Ada due to the "shaking and coughing" line in the song more fitting that story than Lolita.

I can't remember specifics right now, I'll look for that conversation.

[Ryokan]

I found Lolita to be a very bittersweet and emotionally moving book, and I've read it twice. Been years since I read it though, so might pick it up again.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by Ryokan
I found Lolita to be a very bittersweet and emotionally moving book, and I've read it twice. Been years since I read it though, so might pick it up again.

I agree, but that first cross country trip really just pointlessly dragged on, I thought. I'm going to give it another go in a month or two just to be sure.

[Kiless]

I'm bumping this as I recently brought a replacement copy (I envision the likes of Anne Fadiman screaming in horror, but if you lend books out to students on occasion they'll come back worse-for-wear) and found this essay online at Slate.com - Lolita at 50 (http://www.slate.com/id/2132708/nav/tap1/).

[billydkid]

Ah! I wasn't sure if you were referring to the movie, the book, or someone you know named Lolita.

It's been a long time since I've read it, but I remember being pretty much entranced the whole way through. The most chilling line I remember is when he first rapes her and says that she responds to his passion, because, "She had no choice."

I can't remember reading the book, though I am sure I did. Speaking of the movie - one of the most chilling movies scenes I can remember seeing was the scene where the Peter Sellers character (sorry, don't remember the name) was killed - very odd and wrenching I thought.

[Piscivore]

I can't remember reading the book, though I am sure I did. Speaking of the movie - one of the most chilling movies scenes I can remember seeing was the scene where the Peter Sellers character (sorry, don't remember the name) was killed - very odd and wrenching I thought.

Quilty. And yes. That's because it was messy and awkward and ugly, like a real murder by an inexperienced assasin would be.

Just watched "The Bad Seed" this weekend. Between Lo and Rhoda, little girls in the Fifties were just bad news. :D

[Kiless]

I can't remember reading the book, though I am sure I did. Speaking of the movie - one of the most chilling movies scenes I can remember seeing was the scene where the Peter Sellers character (sorry, don't remember the name) was killed - very odd and wrenching I thought.

Clare Quilty, the paedophile/porn director, who first exclaims to Humbert 'where the devil did you get her?' upon spying Lolita and pursues her furtively after. Eventually Lolita goes to his compound (she was a loving fan of Quilty since he was well known in the mainstream as a performer... in the film, wasn't he a photo on her bedroom wall?) where she refuses to act in a filmed pornographic orgy and eventually leaves in disgust after realising that Quilty doesn't return her love.

The only real tragic character is Lolita. I personally felt nothing for Quilty and saw his death and Humbert's death as the end of two very wretched characters.

Edit - gah! *&^(^% spelling!!

[Piscivore]

The only real tragic character is Lolita. I personally felt nothing for Quilty and saw his death and Humbert's death as the end of two very wretched characters.

Did you get the feeling that Knobby killed her off in the book only because he just didn't know what to do with her when she was separated from her "suitors"? That he gave her the hubby and the baby only to underscore to Humbert that he was not in her life anymore, not going to be in her life anymore- but once that plot point was settled he was "done" with her and keeping her alive and happy without HH or Q was wrong somehow?

[billydkid]

Clare Quilty, the paedophile/porn director, who first exclaims to Humbert 'where the devil did you get her?' upon spying Lolita and pursues her furtively after. Eventually Lolita goes to his compound (she was a loving fan of Quilty since he was well known in the mainstream as a performer... in the film, wasn't he a photo on her bedroom wall?) where she refuses to act in a filmed pornographic orgy and eventually leaves in disgust after realising that Quilty doesn't return her love.

The only real tragic character is Lolita. I personally felt nothing for Quilty and saw his death and Humbert's death as the end of two very wretched characters.

Edit - gah! *&^(^% spelling!!
I didn't suggest that Quilty was somehow tragic. Only that the scene was especially disturbing.

[Kiless]

Did you get the feeling that Knobby killed her off in the book only because he just didn't know what to do with her when she was separated from her "suitors"? That he gave her the hubby and the baby only to underscore to Humbert that he was not in her life anymore, not going to be in her life anymore- but once that plot point was settled he was "done" with her and keeping her alive and happy without HH or Q was wrong somehow?

Nice question! :)

It's actually really subtle. In the story 'proper', she is left, impoverished but happy with a young husband who knows of her past and still loves her. She has moved on and will have a child of her own. The punishment is meant to be meted out to HH, who has nothing left after this. HE sees his final glimpse of her in this state. Despite this, I somehow feel it would be worse if it did not, even fleetingly, demonstrate that an abused childhood couldn't lead to acceptance and happiness in another relationship.

Unless (so like Nabokov, if you've read Pale Fire....) you carefully go back to read the introduction.... :(

For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the 'real' people beyond the 'true' story, a few details may be given as recieved from Mr 'Windmuller' of 'Ramsdale,' who desires his identity suppressed so that 'the long shadow of this sorry and sordid business' should not reach the community of which he is proud to belong. His daugher 'Louise' is by now a college sophmore. 'Mona Dahl' is a student in Paris. 'Rita' has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. 'Richard F. Schiller' died in childbirth giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. 'Vivian Darkbloom' has written a biography, 'My Cue,' to be published shortly and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk. (page 4, Penguin Modern Classics edition, Australia).

Once again, she is marginalised... even literally, thrown in as an aside in the paragraph about more successful girls who at least have their original names given. Even 'Vivian Darkbloom' captialises! Once again, she's defined by a man, a man's name. And the irony! The remotest Northwest? How appealing does 'Gray Star' sound?? A Christmas Day death... another dead little girl....

The title of the story is her name... but it's the name Humbert Humbert gave her. In the end, this could be spoken of about marginalisation of even independent young women and seen as a statement about feminism... I once suggested an assigment to compare this and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and what meaning could be read into how the authors use 'names'. The framing device of an afterword in THT is rather similar to Navokov's introduction.

So, yeah, perhaps the tragedy of the situation is rather extreme. But I question who sees and who is influenced by the tragedy. Certainly I've had students hand in their synopis which concluded that Dolores Haze married and lived happily ever after.... :(

P.S - 'Knobby'. *Snorf* :D I'm not telling that to my students, it's hard enough breaking them of the habit of going ' 'speare ' and 'Fishhead' (Tim Winton).

[Kiless]

I didn't suggest that Quilty was somehow tragic. Only that the scene was especially disturbing.

Sorry! So much for my emphasis on close reading.... :rolleyes: The book tells it so beautifully and I'd write it but it goes for four pages.... in the end, what transcends the 'tragedy' is what Nabokov originally intended - to tell his love story with the English language. :)

[Piscivore]

Nice question! :)

It's actually really subtle. In the story 'proper', she is left, impoverished but happy with a young husband who knows of her past and still loves her. She has moved on and will have a child of her own. The punishment is meant to be meted out to HH, who has nothing left after this. HE sees his final glimpse of her in this state. Despite this, I somehow feel it would be worse if it did not, even fleetingly, demonstrate that an abused childhood couldn't lead to acceptance and happiness in another relationship.

Unless (so like Nabokov, if you've read Pale Fire....) you carefully go back to read the introduction.... :(

So, yeah, perhaps the tragedy of the situation is rather extreme. But I question who sees and who is influenced by the tragedy. Certainly I've had students hand in their synopis which concluded that Dolores Haze married and lived happily ever after.... :(
[/SIZE]

I skipped the introduction when I read it last (so may of them are either pedantic or spoiler-filled), and I don't remember what led me to go back and read it after I finished, or I might have missed it. I wondered what my impression would have been throughout the story if I had known Lo was doomed. Maybe that's the spark missing I was looking for in my OP. If the consequences of Humbert's actions on her life are what the author was trying to emphasise, though, wouldn't it have been better actually in the story and a little more specifically consequential than "died in childbirth?" Of course, the book isn't really about her, though.

I haven't yet read anything else by VK yet. Worth it?

I've read "Handmaid's Tale" three times now and have wanted to go burn down churches after each time. :rolleyes:

[Kiless]

If the consequences of Humbert's actions on her life are what the author was trying to emphasise, though, wouldn't it have been better actually in the story and a little more specifically consequential than "died in childbirth?" Of course, the book isn't really about her, though.


Well, I don't think that it was. The ommission tells us more, I'd say, about the intentions of the author. Which is why....

I haven't yet read anything else by VK yet. Worth it?

Get Pale Fire. Seriously. :)

Both one of the most tragic tales of how communication is so important in a family, a horror-story about literary interpretation... and one of the funniest stories I've ever read. :D

Pale Fire is why you should always read introductions.... and footnotes.... and why I always reflect and step back from definitive judgements about my interpretations of literature. There is no definitive.

(....except in the case where Darat says that Lord of the Flies is Science Fiction, he's just plain wrong. :p )

I've read "Handmaid's Tale" three times now and have wanted to go burn down churches after each time. :rolleyes:

)*&^*&@# rocks, that book. Just .... speechless. I took a copy to TAM 3 for the second-hand booksale, couldn't resist it. :) It sold before it even GOT to the table. :D

[Piscivore]

Get Pale Fire. Seriously. :)

Both one of the most tragic tales of how communication is so important in a family, a horror-story about literary interpretation... and one of the funniest stories I've ever read. :D

Okay, it's on my list then. When I get done re-reading Salinger. If you want to know the truth, I love that man's work. Just Goddamn love it, is all. ;)

Pale Fire is why you should always read introductions.... and footnotes.... and why I always reflect and step back from definitive judgements about my interpretations of literature. There is no definitive.

Noted.

)*&^*&@# rocks, that book. Just .... speechless. I took a copy to TAM 3 for the second-hand booksale, couldn't resist it. :) It sold before it even GOT to the table. :D

I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough to read it.

[Kiless]

Which Salinger? I FINALLY got a copy of For Esmé - with Love and Squalor in Auckland (the places I go for a bookstore...) and fell in love (heh) all over again.

[Piscivore]

All of them. Just finished "Roof Beam", "Franny", and three of the "Nine Stories" (aka "Esme" to you Commonwealthers), and am now in the middle of "Seymour."

[Soapy Sam]

Lolita was a dreadful disappointment to me. I read it when I was about sixteen and wondered why everyone said it was a "dirty" book.

I was never good with hints and euphemisms.

I re-read it in my twenties and found it very funny in many ways. I really can't say I ever found it erotic.