Men Explain Lolita To Me

Fri Dec 18 15:39:56 CST 2015

No doubt art and life work together in a positive feedback reinforcement.
But in the case of the male libido, and the part domination plays in it, I
don't think it's something young women need to be shielded from.  Better if
they could learn to say, Ho, ho, ho, so that's what the big babies need.
Actually I think they sense it anyway, from a fairly early age. Not a very
balanced solution I'll admit but it's the best I got.

P

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:

> Advertising works for a reason.  “Glamorous” actors/characters smoking in
> movies had/has an effect.  Seeing blacks almost entirely in  low-status
> positions (real or fictional) has an effect.  Women never seeing women as
> good bosses had an effect.  Of course art has an effect - lol -  Sometimes
> artists actually want to say something about the world or their perception
> of it.
>
> The thing is, imo - heh,  there are at least a couple levels of effect -
> one is a cognitive response and another is an emotional response.  The
> emotional can be subconscious - I don’t know if that’s true about a
> cognitive response.
>
> In reading Blood Meridian I find the language to be so excellent I can
> overlook the violence.  Reading Lolita I can appreciate the language and
> understand this is a great novel on a cognitive level.  But even so I have
> an emotional response to HH justifying his abuse of a 12-year old girl.  I
> have women friends who were totally unable to get through the violence
> (much of it against women) in Blood Meridian - their emotional response was
> too strong.   These same women read crime novels with horrible abuse of
> women and children but the perpetrators are always presented as completely
> sicko bad guys - never "justified”  by anything else.
>
> How many men read and appreciated A Little Life? - Great writing.  lol -
> (sex abuse of boys)   Of course Yanagihara is certainly no Nabokov and
> yes, A Little Life is emotionally manipulative.   Marlon James’  A Brief
> History of Seven Killings was a much better choice for the Booker winner.
>
> Becky
>
>
> > On Dec 18, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I agree with what you say, I think.  I am not going to reread Solnit to
> see how I have misread her. What I remember is DANTO arguing that art/
> literature must have some effect or it wouldn't be art and the State
> wouldn't worry about some examples of it.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Dec 18, 2015, at 1:43 PM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>      I suppose that subjectively, one could say that "this piece of art
> has profoundly engaged me and I, personally, will act differently from now
> on." That is different than a blanket statement that "Art makes Life". One
> could cite Hitler's efforts at book burning and banning of "degenerate art"
> as perhaps strong examples of art making a big difference in a culture. I
> still think that Art, with a capitol A, has to take a back seat to the
> Allied Forces noble efforts to destroy the Third Reich in making the world
> a better place. Yes, the Allied bombers made special efforts to avoid
> bombing the great cultural artifacts in Europe. We do value art,
> literature, music, etc. I think it is a mistake to think that they
> therefore gain an equal status with "Life" as, a general concept. Not
> individual lives, or even a large group, but Life, as an abstract category
> of existence.
> >>      I grant that in a metaphoric or poetic sense, "Art makes Life" can
> be true. I think it is a mistake to think that we use "Life' as a barometer
> of how we regard the value of a piece of Art, which I think Solnit was
> implying. Art can change the world in manner you suggest, but so can
> weather, food, and major economic indicators. The idea that Art, by itself,
> has an overarching claim on our life world than any other category, to me
> still rings false. It has en elevated value, to be sure. But the minute Art
> becomes a social program, we are stuck with phenomenon like Communism's
> Socialist Realism.
> >> "
> >>
> >> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Okay, I'll be ridiculous. Not the first time. I'm not going to address
> >> the largest implications of the question as you do.
> >>
> >> i'm going to take small philosophical baby steps. If "art makes life"
> >> is at least partly true for one person. And that person acts
> >> "better' because of it, then the statement is true.
> >> If "art makes life' is true of more than one person and they act
> >> better because of it, then the statement is true and somehow the world
> >> is different because of that therefore.......
> >>
> >> One question is How many are so effected? And what does it lead them
> >> to see and do differently? And how does that matter in your largest
> >> questions.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick
> >> <petopoet at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >      I would only take issue with her final assertion that "art makes
> life".
> >> > I am none too sure about the truth of that, especially in our modern
> era,
> >> > where access to means of expression are at an unprecedented level, at
> least
> >> > in Western societies. More than one author has despaired at the idea
> or hope
> >> > that they could possibly change society through their writing. The
> >> > Mapplethorpe controversy could be read as an effort to battle gay
> rights as
> >> > much as artistic expression. Picasso's "Guernica" is a masterpiece,
> but I
> >> > have serious doubts if it ever changed any country's views on the use
> of
> >> > technological weapons that do not discriminate between combatants and
> >> > civilians. James Joyce and William S. Burroughs helped to change
> obscenity
> >> > rulings in American, perhaps, but I don't think this is what Solnit
> means by
> >> > "art makes life".
> >> >      Plato wanted to banish the poets, assuredly,so that his
> >> > philosopher-kings could priviledge reason and law over emotion and
> >> > imagination. I believe Heidegger had a lot to say on this aspect of
> our
> >> > cultural heritage (even if he was prone to utter idiocy in other
> areas,
> >> > notably fascism). Perhaps this is another aspect of Solnit's piece
> that
> >> > raises questions to me - why does it seem so humorless, intellectual,
> if not
> >> > a little unclear on what she does privilege in literature? That she
> uses
> >> > this charge of "lack of humor" to chide others does bring her own
> seeming
> >> > lack to the foreground, at least to me.
> >> >      "Lolita' is provocative, original, and must strike some note
> that is
> >> > essentially true to readers - books do not enter the "canon" of modern
> >> > literature through any other mysterious vetting process than
> reception and
> >> > response. Solnit can criticize it as much as she likes, it isn't going
> >> > anywhere. Generally, my main criticism of her piece is that it too
> strongly
> >> > influenced by modern literary studies efforts at de-construction and
> >> > Derridean disdain of the "phallo -centrism" of the so-called "Logos".
> >> > Somewhere in there, I think men are supposed to feel bad. My own zen
> moment
> >> > in modern literary critical studies was when we were covering  Lacan's
> >> > interpretation of Poe's "The Purloined Letter". I suddenly realized
> that I
> >> > could read Poe's short story one million times and I would Never, no,
> Never
> >> > see whatever it was that Lacan was seeing there.
> >> >
> >> > On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 11:06 AM, Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Thesis?
> >> >>
> >> >> Or long exhausted trope?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> love,
> >> >> cfa
> >> >>
> >> >> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 11:52 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Typical of Solnit: witty,engaging, sharp but balanced, and a
> pleasure to
> >> >>> read. Many of the responses seem to prove her thesis with
> unexpected ease.
> >> >>> > On 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/?listpynchon-l
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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