Re: Catching up with 'Lolita' — 50 years later

[Mark Kohut]

--- On Mon, 8/11/08, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Catching up with 'Lolita' — 50 years later
> To: "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> Date: Monday, August 11, 2008, 12:14 PM
> I respectfully disagree...........
> 
> Reality matters for all good/great fiction. Reality matters
> for Lolita and
> all VN's fiction........see what he, VN, says about
> that. See what others say about that.
> 
> Nabokov made her 12 so that Humbert's pedophilia would
> define him. 
> 
> He was brilliant enough to have Lolita "involved"
> with a peer already before Humbert meets her......BUT
  two 'children' discovering whatever sex they discover together
  is morally different.
  
> 
> The moral crux of the book is when Humbert realizes near
> the end that "he took away her
> childhood"......which is what sex with children by
> adults does....
> 
> Which is why laws are passed calling it rape.......almost a
> universal "human right" [to not be violated, as a
> child].
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Mon, 8/11/08, Dave Monroe
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: Catching up with 'Lolita' — 50
> years later
> > To: markekohut at yahoo.com
> > Date: Monday, August 11, 2008, 11:29 AM
> > On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Mark Kohut
> > <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > That Lolita was a 'wilfull temptation' is
> just
> > wilfully distortive and almost evil. She is 12 years
> old!!
> > 
> > 1.  Lolita is a fictional character
> > 
> > 2.  Do you know any 12 years olds?  Were you perhaps
> 12
> > yourself at
> > some point?
> > 
> > I'm not saying that the text itself (regardless of
> > Nabokov's
> > intentions, whatver they might have been, and with
> whatever
> > success he
> > might have inscribed them in his novel) supports such
> a
> > reading, but
> > an appeal to "reality" is misguided, for at
> least
> > two reasons, is all
> > ...