Men Explain Lolita To Me

[John Bailey]

I think the obviousness is what makes the attempts to 'correct' her so
patronising.

And god, I really hope mistaking your opinions for universal truths
and forcing them on others isn't hardwired.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the question of whether mansplaining is biologically linked to sex,
> rather than deepset power imbalance between the genders, is a potentially
> interesting source of neurological/biological research. Do men tend towards
> pedantry and pedagoguery as part of a hard wired 'right brain-left brain'
> imbalance?
>
> I sympathise with a lot of the points Solnit makes, while also agreeing with
> an earlier comment that Nabokov himself would have been first in the queue
> to patronise her and castigate her for 'misreading' his novel.
>
>
> On Thursday, December 17, 2015, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think she made some remarks somewhere about how Lolita is a pretty
>> disturbing novel if you empathise with Lolita, and some blokes chimed
>> in to inform her how she was reading it all wrong if she did that.
>>
>> Solnit was the writer to first identify mansplaining and I think it's
>> a great concept. There's certainly a previously unlabeled rhetorical
>> arrogance that to me isn't biologically linked to sex but definitely
>> has ties to gender and power and language. I also like that the P-list
>> is kinda absent of that, and that we understand you don't go round
>> telling someone they're reading Pynchon wrong, actually, and here's a
>> list of reasons why.
>>
>> Also dig her argument against defending art from all criticism because
>> ART, GUYS, IT'S ART. I've had the same thought for years but never
>> read it: if you think art is automatically immune from critique then
>> you're saying it has no impact, no real effect, it exists in a
>> hermetic bubble that admits no exchanges with our profane world. I
>> think the most interesting art can have huge and reckonable effects
>> and yes, governments and other authorities recognise this and can be
>> troubled by it.
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > She is definitely not going to win any of the people who were
>> > criticizing
>> > her over whatever it was she wrote before with this piece. I can say
>> > that
>> > much at least.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Curiously uneven if you ask me...salient, brilliant points mixed with
>> >> the easiest (therefore worst) ways to make her case...
>> >> people posting on Facebook???...My gawd....I could do this constantly.
>> >>  People, men or women, misreading a great work.....
>> >>    Nabokov had HH come to a moral epiphany....seems this must be said
>> >> and wasn't. Unless Ms Nabokov quote is to be equivalent.
>> >>
>> >> we have to identify with Lolita because common human morality....to
>> >> read it right....
>> >> Does she read it aright even w identification?
>> >> That she framed this around mansplaining....seems too of the moment...
>> >> And that many women do not have their explanations and want you to know
>> >> it?
>> >> but, yes, more men 'splain than women in the America I know...
>> >> I think she 'projects' her feminism world too much sometimes...
>> >>
>> >> More talk around me I don't really 'get".
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 3:50 PM, Matthew Taylor
>> >> <matthew.taylor923 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > Thoughts on Rebecca Solnit's latest?
>> >> >
>> >> > http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> >
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l