No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov

[Mark Kohut]

I think most feel that because Humbert narrates, with that intelligence and style---"you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style"---we have to fight our identification with him.
   
  But, yes, she is 12...we are repulsed at the thought (and the person, except maybe for youthfulness) and the young person. Humbert does not "love" a person, just his projected lust..........she is purposely, even through the last meeting with Humbert, presented as uninteresting...and a CHILD......
   
  Humbert is a pedophile.......how much he comes to realize this in his "self-recognition" scene is an interesting question......
   
  Trump card to Lolita doubters: much circumstantial evidence that OBA likes Nabokov, although, of course, that doesn't mean everything just something.

Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
  I was considering Lolita earlier this morning. A lot of critics praise Nabokov's 'unnerving' ability to make us emphasise with Numbert Humbert's attraction to Dolores. Personally I find no such empathy; she's only presented as a gormless bratty 12 year old who he happens to lust after in a very deluded fashion. Typical of Nabokov's inability to show any sensitivity. 
As for the prose, I found it strangely variable: some of it ranks among the greatest I've read (describing her playing tennis, describing her 'accidentally' fallen across his knee) but some his hideously clunky. I find that Nabokov is fantastic at descriptions but weak at metaphors. 

  On 9/12/07, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:  On 9/12/07, Richard Ryan <richardryannyc at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> No taste for Pale Fire, eh?

Pale Fire was OK, but really more a mystery/puzzle than a novel.  It 
aims at the head, not the heart (and, no, I was not moved by the
suicide story on the surface of the story).  If others hadn't cracked
open the puzzel for me I would never have "got" it.

David Morris 




       
---------------------------------
Don't let your dream ride pass you by.    Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20070912/7c83fa1c/attachment-0001.html>