I'm reading Lolita

[teenybuffalo]

And enjoying it--much to my surprise.  I picked up a five-dollar copy at the used bookstore after a stressful interview the other day, as an impulse buy.  It would be a slog, I figured, due either to the impenetrable style I expected Nabokov to write, or to the subject matter.

It's actually being a quick read for me.  Turns out I like reading the

Comments

[rysmiel]

Nabokov is Lovecraft's heir.

I can avoid a plotbunny any time I like.

[teenybuffalo]

I'm already bunned out of house and home. I can try to keep them from invading your country, but that bunny probably liked your icon too much.

[rysmiel]

The Canadian winter is actually a cunning plot scheme to thin the invading hordes of bunnies down to levels we can manage.

[ladymondegreen]

Otherwise the invading tide of Canadian plot bunnies is too great and the come across the border and rewrite America's continuity for all of spring.

[rax]

Your experience so far is more or less like mine, although there were occasional flashes of "Wait, is this person caring about this other person as earnestly as they can and it's just horribly fucked up?" that you could mistake for love if you really needed new glasses. I found those, and my reactions to them, a big part of why the book was so interesting.

[teenybuffalo]

I bet I'll find something of the same impression as the book goes on. Right now, it's making me think of various other fiction with adult-child relationships that start off as familial and turn sexual--in some cases after the age of consent, in other cases child molester/victim. And there's often this ambiguous attachment that works both ways between the characters, where each would say they love the other, even though it's in a twisted way as far as the audience is concerned. I'm curious whether Nabokov will get into that.

[sovay]

I keep hearing the text read aloud at the back of my head in the voice of Anthony Hopkins.

James Mason is definitive for me.

But let's just look at the front of this book jacket: "The only convincing love story of our century."--Vanity Fair.

Which made me very curious about the full context. Fortunately, someone helpful on the internet has traced that quote.

P.S. Flanders & Swann, "Good Literature"

I got Lolita-well, you had to do it
Started well, but couldn't struggle through it
A bit of sex, but an awful lot of suet
I'm waiting for the film to come

[teenybuffalo]

Iiiinteresting. That's what I'd call mining for a quote--though even given its context it still looks bizarre. (I laughed at Shapiro's saying "You can imagine why this characterization could be a problem.")

As for the movies--is there a version where Lolita actually looks like a preadolescent girl? The only images I've seen look like she's safely aged-up so that there's no need for the audience to feel disturbed.

[sovay]

As for the movies--is there a version where Lolita actually looks like a preadolescent girl?

I've never seen the 1997 film with Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain . . . but I see that the actress was born in 1980, so my guess is no. I stand by my desire to rent the DVD from the next universe over with Hayley Mills.

[teenybuffalo]

Thanks for the Flanders and Swann, by the way. I didn't see it till just now. Of course they would have been there and done that.

[rushthatspeaks]

Lolita is very high on my list of 'books critics etc. consistently read in a way that makes me wonder whether we were, in fact, literally reading the same book or not'. The fact that I have such a list... aargh.

Anyway. It's a really good book! Not remotely a romance, dammit! And the textual games around the edges charm me-- keep an eye out for mentions of Dolores' classmates.

[teenybuffalo]

I can see I'm building my own equivalent list. But I'm glad I took the bother to open this one. Chalk up yet another book that I like despite its publicity.

[nineweaving]

So what's on your list?

Nine

[rysmiel]

I too should be interested in the answer to this question.

[mollyringle]

"Trainwreck" is a word I used for Lolita too, in the most flattering sense. Nabokov is really, really good at making this sordid situation poetic, while blithely letting everyone remain aware that this is way messed up, yo. Fascinating the way all good gossip is, but beautifully written too.

[teenybuffalo]

I'm always surprised when popular opinion tells me something is well-written and then it really is. They call this hype backlash on TV Tropes, where you've been hearing about something for so long you never want to go near the thing yourself.

It is very much like gossip--lurid and riveting. And maybe something of a takedown of the sort of Great Literature that's all about self-pitying older male writers and the improbably young chicks who reawaken their souls? I've not read much of that school of fiction, because obviously it annoys me, but Lolita seems like that idea taken to a ghastly extreme.

[mollyringle]

And maybe something of a takedown of the sort of Great Literature that's all about self-pitying older male writers and the improbably young chicks who reawaken their souls?

Heheh! I'd never thought of it that way, but I could totally believe it of Nabokov, who had a relentless and mischievous sense of humor.

I recall also seeing Lolita described as "old Europe debauching young America," or possibly "young America seducing old Europe." Or both at once, since Lolita (the character) is hardly an innocent.