The Lolita object? function?

Gregory L Roth greg_roth at juno.com
Wed Dec 9 15:43:27 CST 1998


Dear Professor types,

Before I discovered any facts about Thomas Pynchon, before the list,
before FAQs, there were two things that I was sure about the author.  One
was that he must have once been part of a drug culture, and the other was
that he had to have read Lolita.  I was delighted to discover from the
web site that he was once a student of old Valdimir.  It explained not
only the overtones of Lolita in the Pokler/Peenemunde/Dora sections in
GR, but also why these overtones often poked fun at Nabokov.  This is my
question: is there a name for the way Lolita is used in GR?  I'm not
looking for "Literary Device."  It is much more subtle, rich, and complex
than that.  I find it to be analogous to the way a programmer would use
an object or function-  an object that contains a literary algorithm. 
Use any human condition as an argument to the "Lolita function."  Pore in
loneliness, paranoia, cruelty, the absurdities of fairyland, and each
time the function spits out a new and meaningful result- a result that
would otherwise be meaningless without Lolita.  I thought it was
brilliant!  

Oh, speaking of the Pokler/Peenemunde/Dora, am I the only person on the
list that thinks all the press of the recent weeks past (pics of Dora on
60 minutes, etc.) was more about a sympathetic media to a lawsuit than
any attempt at truth?  Just trying not to ask the wrong questions.

Greg



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