Posted by Joffre on 17/4/2009, 17:04:06, in reply to "Re: Lolita "
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I really want the study of literature to be the study of art in literature. I want to think about an author's strengths and weaknesses. I want to think about his place in the evolution of literature. This author seems to be influenced by this predecessor in this aspect, but this is new, this is his or her contribution, it influences this author later. It seems to me that very few academics talk about this. I suppose some of it is difficult to talk about. I find some of it in essays by authors like E.M. Forser and Milan Kundera. I think Harold Bloom has some insight. I wish I could talk with some of these people. I also insist on value judgements. I am not a person who thinks life is short, but there is a limited amount of time. I want to feel that whether I've liked a book or not, I've not wasted my time reading it. Of course, I do go slumming sometimes out of curiosity. And I don't care at all about a books relation to the 'real' world. I have no doubt that books are written with the 'real' world in mind, but the world changes, and the books stay the same. There should be something in them that seems permanently relevent, and it's only that part that really matters. A common reader pulls a book off a shelf and reads it out of all historical and biographical context. I want criticism that interests a common reader, not criticism of the academic, by the academic, and for the academic. Maybe it can be argued that those first interests I listed are not those of a common reader. I don't know. There are probably inconsistencies in my ideas, and I don't mean to argue with anyone here. I was just thinking about why Hungerford's lectures fail to interest me much.
I first read Lolita when I was twenty-two and working at a highschool where there were pretty girls just a few years younger, and I think I thought of Lolita as older than twelve. I was excited by an illicit love story rather than appalled by a disgusting one. And I was, like you and most people, dazzled by the language. And although familiarty wears down the effect of that, I still find the language dazzling. I don't think I know of a novel with more dazzling language. So many of the phrases or images stay in my head. Lolita, Humbert's dolorous and hazy darling. The dandelions had changed from suns to moons. I know all but the end of that first chapter by heart. I still, perhaps liking Humbert because I like 'listening' to him, have trouble not imagining Lolita a little older than she is, though he stresses the immaturity of her body enough. I think I was in my third reading before I felt really conscious of the cruelty in the book. I think one of the cruelest images is that of Humbert twisting the wrist Valeria had hurt falling from a bicycle. Humbert, though, is not without his own pain. I wonder if the riddle Nabakov has composed here is, "how sorry is Humbert and did he in a rather twisted way really love Lolita?" I don't think the answer is clear. Maybe there's also the question, "how wrong was Humbert?" I don't believe the first encounter with Lolita was rape in more than a statutory sense. I think Lolita threw herself at him. Saying this particular person should have resisted seems like saying a muslim should refrain from eating the porkchop you've thrown him when he hasn't eaten for a week. I'm not sure there's anyone to blame in this novel. Life is just killing everyone.
I appreciated your 'haze of uncertainty.'
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